by C. J. Box
Joe and Nate exchanged glances. Nate obviously didn’t believe Pope’s version. Joe wasn’t so sure.
“What we did know was what would happen if the story got out,” Pope said. “Five white guys, two married at the time, accused of gang-raping an innocent Native American girl in an elk camp. No matter what the facts were, do you think for one second that any of us would have had a chance? We’d have been tarred for the rest of our lives. I mean, all five of us grew apart after that incident and went on to become pretty successful. Frank was a bigshot in his community, and Wally was a great guy, head of his United Way campaign. I’m the director of the game and fish department. If she’d taken us to court, none of that would have happened, and for what good reason?”
Joe said, “So you made sure she’d be discredited and shamed. You contacted Vern Dunnegan and the sheriff and told them ahead of time she was off her rocker.”
Pope shrugged, held out his hands in a “what else could we do” plea.
Joe didn’t respond.
“What choice did we have?” Pope asked, heatedly. “And even if she sees things differently now than I do, how can anyone justify these murders? She obviously convinced someone—and I think we know who—the five of us were evil men.”
Joe had never seen Pope so desperate, so scared. He could smell his fear in the cab of the truck.
“What bothers me,” Joe said, “is how long you knew about the connection.”
“I wasn’t sure!”
“But you said nothing. You kept it to yourself. My guess is you thought about it for the first time after John Garrett was murdered. Especially when you heard about the poker chip. Am I right? That’s why you shut me down so fast when I brought it up.”
Pope said nothing. Joe took his silence as confirmation.
“And when Warren Tucker was killed, and again there was a poker chip, you knew there was a connection. Two of your old friends in a row. Each hunting at the time, each with a poker chip on them. You knew.”
Pope stared ahead as if Joe wasn’t speaking.
“That’s what hacks me off so much,” Joe said. “Neither you or Vern Dunnegan did the right thing. You sat there while two men were murdered, leaving behind widows, children, and grandchildren, and you didn’t do a thing because all you could think of was yourselves.”
“I wasn’t sure,” Pope said softly.
Joe shook his head. “You can say that now. But you knew. That’s why you were all over this when Frank Urman was butchered. You were just waiting for it. So for the first time in your professional career, you were on the scene. You wanted to be in charge so if we caught the killer you could mitigate the damage to you. And you offered up your buddy Wally Conway to get him out of the way so he wouldn’t start talking. You were appeasing the shooter, offering up Wally, hoping that would put a stop to it. But when you saw how Klamath could get to you, could put a severed head in your hotel room, well, you knew it wasn’t over after all. You knew you’d be next no matter what. Am I right so far?”
Pope snorted, as if Joe were amusing him. It wasn’t convincing.
“But more than anything, you were hoping we’d trail the shooter and take him out so nothing would ever get out. Right? That’s why you were there to help spring Nate, right? Because whatever you think of him, you know he’s lethal.”
“Damned right,” Nate said.
“You’re insane,” Pope said. But his shoulders slumped in defeat.
THE TREES closed in around them as they ascended. The sky was gray, the air almost still. Two hours until dark. Joe pulled his truck off a two-track and turned off the motor.
“Recognize this place?” Joe asked Pope.
“Of course,” Pope said, annoyed. “It’s where Frank Urman was found.”
“And where Randy Pope will be found,” Joe said.
Pope’s red-rimmed eyes filled with tears.
30
THERE IS a very specific way to skin an animal so that a taxidermist can create a flawless shoulder mount. It’s called caping. It works best if the animal to be caped is hung up by the back legs.
Caping requires a sharp skinning knife with a short, fat blade like the one in my sheath. A slit is made in the skin behind the shoulder at the midway point of the rib cage. Another is made around the legs just above the knees. Or the arms, in this case. A third precise cut is made to join the slits on the back of the leg (or arm). The skin is then peeled like a banana toward the jaw until the neck is exposed. Then the very delicate work begins: cutting the skin away from the ears, skull, nose, and mouth. The weight of the hide—skin is surprisingly heavy—helps because it pulls the skin-peel downward. The skin is sliced away from the flesh with extremely light knife strokes. If the procedure is done correctly, the skin will drop away into a wet pile in the grass, showing an inverted, inside-out face.
This is what will happen to Randy Pope. My only dilemma is whether I’ll cape him when he’s dead or still alive.
THE TERRAIN, of course, is familiar. As I stride—careful to step on exposed rocks and to keep slightly to the side of established and muddy game trails—I weigh the advantage of knowing this mountain and the exact location of my prey against the possibility that I’m being led into a trap. Given the odds and what I know to be true—that the FBI informant has yet to give bad information and that an opportunity like this is too great to disregard—I proceed.
The sky concerns me. Even a skiff of snow makes tracking easy. I vow that if it starts to snow I’ll turn back the moment it begins, despite the opportunity offered me. I study the clouds and conclude it will snow, but later in the evening. After I’m done and back.
My backpack is empty except for several thick-ply plastic garbage bags. The pack will be heavier when I return due to fifteen pounds of skin.
I CAN’T shake the feeling I’m being followed. I’ve neither heard nor seen anything to confirm my impression. Several times I stop and stand still, compelling my senses to reach out beyond their capacities to tell me something. The only thing I can point at that supplements my suspicion is the utter quiet—except for a slight breeze in the treetops—that remains in my wake. I’ve learned that after I’ve passed though an area, after a respectful period, the birds and squirrels begin talking to one another again. But I hear no resumption of sounds. It’s as if I’ve shut out all life by being in its presence.
There are conceivable justifications for the quiet. Low pressure can do it.
Either I’m imagining things or whoever is behind me is as good as I am. I proceed.
FINALLY, I’M CLIMBING the last rise and the trees start to thin. This is where Frank Urman was taken, just below the ridge I now approach. I drop to all fours, cradling my rifle on my forearms, and crawl to the top and look over the other side.
A quarter of a mile away, in that stand of trees, is Randy Pope. He’s just standing there, his back against a tree.
JOE FELT the presence of the shooter without actually seeing anyone. The hair on the back of his neck rose, and a shiver rolled up the length of his body from his boots to the top of his head.
He was behind the upturned root pan of an enormous fallen pine tree. He could see Pope’s shoulder through an opening in a gnarl of thick roots. He could tell by the way Pope shook that the man was sobbing.
They’d handcuffed Randy Pope behind his back to the same tree Frank Urman had been hung from and made a show of leaving the area. But instead of driving away, Joe snuck back into the tree stand and Nate hiked through the timber to a high granite knob that overlooked the tree stand, the ridge where Urman had originally been killed, and the mountain vista behind it. Both had radios turned low. Joe was armed with his shotgun filled with double-ought buckshot and the .40 Glock on his hip that he had no intention of using. Nate had the scoped .454 Casull.
Joe was thankful for the high breeze, the water sound of the wind in the trees, because it enabled him to communicate in low tones with Nate and remain out of Pope’s hearing range. Joe and Nate had agr
eed to check in with each other every ten minutes whether they saw anything or not. The procedure they’d agreed on was a click on the transmitter button, followed by a murmured check-in. Murmurs tended to meld with nature sounds better than whispers. Joe didn’t want Pope to know he was there and start begging and crying louder.
Joe wished Pope would stop crying. It made Joe feel cruel and awful, and he tried to shut Pope’s suffering out. But his effort was in vain. Despite the things Pope had done and not done to exacerbate the crimes committed, Joe couldn’t help but have sympathy for the man he’d handcuffed and offered up to the killer. Even Pope was a human being, although a diabolical and deeply flawed example of one. He didn’t know how long he could let this go on before he rose and dug in his pocket for the key to the cuffs.
But the feeling of the presence shoved his feelings aside. He raised his binoculars to his eyes and focused on the ridge across the meadow.
As he did, Nate clicked on the handheld.
Joe momentarily ignored the chirp and focused his binoculars on the top of the ridge and saw a slight movement. It was quick: the dull glint of a gun barrel behind a knuckle of rock.
Nate said, “I’ve got a visual.”
Joe pulled up the handheld from where it hung around his neck on a lanyard, said softly, “Me too.”
Nate said, “He just came out of the timber and he’s walking across the side of a meadow headed in your direction. Looks like he’s got a rifle. ETA is ten minutes.”
Joe was confused, and leaned into the binoculars. He could see no further movement, and certainly no one walking toward him.
“Nate, where do you see him?”
“To the east, about a mile from you. It’s Klamath Moore coming your way.”
Joe felt his chest clutch. Then who was up there on the ridge?
SHERIFF MCLANAHAN was exhausted. He stopped every ten to fifteen minutes to rest, falling farther behind his team of volunteers who were on foot, spread through the timber up ahead of him, sweeping the mountainside. He decided that as of tomorrow he would either suspend the investigation or at least not participate in the physical part of it. He was getting too damned old and out of shape for this, he thought. Besides, despite the enthusiasm from his boys for camping out, hiking in the woods with guns, and the horseplay in the camp at night, they hadn’t found a damned thing and the shooter was still at large. McLanahan doubted the shooter was even in the state anymore.
So when his radio crackled, he was in no hurry to reach for it.
“I just cut a fresh track,” someone said. McLanahan recognized the voice of Chris Urman.
“Where are you at?” It was Deputy Reed.
“Right here. See me? I’m waving my arm.”
“Oh, okay. On my way.”
“Oh shit,” Urman said. “I see somebody up ahead. On the game trail.”
A pause. McLanahan felt a trill and reached down for his radio as Reed came on, his voice excited: “I see him! I see him!”
The sheriff said, “Stay calm, boys, I’m on my way. Don’t lose sight of him.”
McLanahan holstered the radio, took a deep breath, and began to jog up the hill, his gear slapping him as it bounced.
NATE ROMANOWSKI peered through the scope of the .454, surprised that Klamath Moore was in the open. Moore skirted a small meadow, a break in the timber, the wall of dark pine on his left. Nate could see him clearly. Yes, Klamath had a rifle slung over his back. He appeared to be tracking someone because his head was down, not up. As Nate watched, Klamath unslung his rifle and held it in front of him at parade rest as he walked.
In Nate’s peripheral vision there was a dull flash of clothing through the timber to the side of where Klamath was in the meadow. Nate quickly swung the .454 away from Klamath into the trees. Through branches and breaks in the timber, Nate saw the heads and shoulders of several men moving toward Klamath. Nate frowned and brought his radio up to his mouth when he recognized McLanahan’s heavy-bodied gait and familiar battered cowboy hat.
Klamath Moore suddenly froze and turned toward the rushing group of men, and a beat later Nate heard a shout—the reason Klamath had wheeled.
Nate almost cried out as Klamath raised his weapon, pointing it at the men in the trees, when a crackling volley of shots punched through the air and Klamath collapsed in the grass.
Nate keyed the mike. “Jesus—they shot him. Klamath Moore is down! It’s McLanahan and his guys.”
Four men, led by Chris Urman, appeared in the meadow, cautiously circling Klamath Moore’s body.
“Joe,” Nate said, “they got him. He’s down and he looks deader than hell from here.”
Nate lowered his weapon. He could see McLanahan clearly now, wheezing his way across the meadow toward the body of Klamath Moore, who was surrounded by Chris Urman and other volunteers. Somebody whooped.
Nate said, “Joe? Did you hear me?”
He heard Joe’s voice, tight and forced. “I heard you.”
“Are you okay?”
“No.”
“What’s happening?”
“The shooter is coming down the hill toward Pope.”
Nate looked at his radio for a second, then shook it. “Come again?”
“Oh my God,” Joe Pickett said. “No.”
THE SHOTS in the woods behind me sent a bolt of fear up my spine. So many shots, so quickly. I drop to a knee and thumb the safety off my rifle, anticipating more fire that doesn’t come. Who was it—hunters? The number of shots reminds me of when a group of hunters come upon a herd of elk—that furious fire as the herd breaks and runs. Is it possible there are hunters up here despite the moratorium? And if so, why didn’t I see their camp or cross their tracks?
I wonder if it had to do with my earlier sense of being followed. The sheriff has men up here, I know. But they’re incompetent. Maybe they circled in on themselves. Maybe I just heard friendly fire.
Or maybe Klamath followed me and got caught. I briefly close my eyes. It makes sense. He’s always been suspicious of me, and the way he looked at me today when I excused myself—yes, it’s possible. But there is no way to know for sure until later.
No matter. This was never about Klamath, despite what he thinks. Because in his world, everything is about Klamath Moore. Not this, though. This is about bestowing dignity and righting wrongs. Klamath just happens to be breathing the same air.
I look up. Randy Pope is within a hundred feet but somehow he has not seen me yet. His head is down, chin on his chest, arms behind his back. What is he doing?
The shots and Randy Pope’s demeanor and appearance unnerve me. I abandon my plans to cape him. Simply killing him—killing the last one and stopping this—will have to be enough. It will be enough.
I rise and walk toward him, striding quickly. I could easily take him from here but I want him to see me. I want to be the last person he ever sees and the last thought he ever has in his mind.
“OH MY God,” Joe said. “No.”
He watched Shenandoah Yellowcalf Moore approach Randy Pope down the length of his shotgun barrel. She wore cargo pants, gloves, a fleece sweater, and a daypack. Her expression was tight and willful, the same face he had seen in the yearbook photos as she drove to the basket past taller players. The breeze licked at her long black hair flowing out beneath a headband. As he looked at her his heart thumped, making his shotgun twitch; his hands were cold and wet and his stomach roiled.
And suddenly, things clicked into place:
She’d been at the airport to greet her husband, Klamath, meaning she’d been in the area prior to his arrival, when Frank Urman was killed.
While Klamath’s movements throughout the hunting season had been accounted for—mostly—by Bill Gordon, there had been no mention of Shenandoah’s travels.
She knew the state, the back roads and hunting areas from traveling with her team and later as a hunting guide.
She knew how to track, how to hunt, how to kill and process game.
She had a motiv
e.
It fit, but he wanted no part of this. He’d been convinced the Wolverine was Klamath himself or one of his followers working under Klamath’s direction.
“Nate,” Joe said, speaking softly into the radio, “I need your help down here.”
“It’ll take me at least five minutes.”
“Hurry.”
At ten feet, she fit the stock of her rifle to her shoulder and raised it until the muzzle was level with the crown of Randy Pope’s head.
She said, “Pope, look up.”
Joe could see Pope squirm, try to shinny around the tree away from her, but he could only go a quarter of the way because his cuff chain hung up on the bark. She took a few steps to her left in the grass so she was still in front of him.
I RECALL not the night it happened but the next morning, when I woke up feeling dirty, bruised, and sore. I was alone in my tent wearing only a T-shirt. They hadn’t even covered me up. I was damaged and it hurt to stand up.
The sun warmed the walls of the tent and as it did I could smell not only me but them. All five of them. I dressed—my clothes were balled up in the corner—and unzipped the flap and stepped outside where it was surprisingly cold. The campfire was going, curls of fragrant wood smoke corkscrewing through the branches of the pine trees, a pot of coffee brewing on my black grate. Three of them sat on stumps around the fire, staring into it as if looking for an explanation. They were unshaven; their faces told me nothing. They were blank faces, hungover faces. Maybe they were ashamed. But when they looked up and saw me, none of them said anything.
No one asked me if I wanted coffee. They weren’t going to talk about it. They were going to pretend nothing had happened.
That was the worst of all. That’s when the rage began. I was nothing to them. It was all about them, not me. This was apparently what they had expected when they hired me. The problem was, I felt the same way at that moment. I thought of their wives, their daughters, assumed they were having the same thoughts.