David Wolf series Box Set

by Jeff Carson

  “Yates!” Wolf called. Deputy Yates stopped short of the trail sign and turned around like a man just picked out of a crowd to be executed. “You’re staying here.”

  Wolf could sense Connell’s presence next to him expanding with boiling hatred. Wolf turned to face him. “We’ll keep in touch. Who else is en route?”

  Connell didn’t answer. Instead, he stepped so close that his SCSD baseball cap slipped underneath the bill of Wolf’s Stetson.

  Wolf didn’t move or blink. Despite the muscles and aggressive body language, Wolf knew Connell for what he really was. Connell, along with all the other bullies he’d encountered in his life, was a coward.

  Connell’s cool gaze fractured for just a second, then he raised his lips.

  Wolf assumed Connell was trying to smile nonchalantly, but it was more a snarl, like a rabid dog baring its teeth. Wolf had seen the same look from Connell many times. It was classic Connell—trying to look composed as he seethed with hate and lusted for violence.

  Only Connell never acted on his impulses with Wolf. Not since the seventh grade, when Wolf had put Connell in his place. Ever since that day, Connell had kept his hatred for Wolf corked tightly, never again acting on it. Wolf wondered whether that cork was going to blow. If it did, Wolf was smart enough not to look forward to that day. Connell had spent a few thousand hours in the gym since seventh grade. Then again, Wolf had killed a lot of men since then. Many men, much more dangerous than Connell. And Wolf knew his relaxed glare at the moment told Connell exactly that.

  Enough time had been wasted. Wolf backed away and turned to Rachette and Baine. “Get the cameras. We’ll need casting material. Bring it all.” He turned toward the trail and began walking when a heavy hand thumped down on his shoulder. Wolf turned quickly, certain he would see Connell’s hurtling fist.

  “We’ll both go up top together,” Connell said with a strained smile. “Wilson, please get an official statement from this woman, and Baine, Rachette, you’re coming with us.”

  Connell swept past Wolf and took a left at the sign, following the Upper Loop. He lunged up the rocky trail with the ease of a large game animal. After thirty feet, he wheeled around. “You guys coming or what?”

  Wolf looked at Wilson and Yates, who were exchanging relieved looks. “Talk to you soon. Keep anyone else that shows up right here, unless I say otherwise. I want this trailhead closed off.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Yates.

  “Yes, sir,” said Wilson.

  They both looked like they’d just won the lottery.

  “Lighten up, you two,” Wolf said.

  Yates and Wilson exchanged puzzled looks.

  Wolf shook his head and started for the trail.

  Chapter 3

  For a few minutes, they trudged up the trail, Connell setting a calf-cramping pace in the lead, leaving Wolf, Rachette, and Baine well behind. It was obvious that Connell had the destination in mind—the top—and he was treating the hike like a race he was going to win at any cost.

  The first quarter mile of the trail was steep, switching back and forth through the ponderosa pine trees, and Wolf’s lungs pumped hard to wring the oxygen out of the Rocky Mountain air. He’d grown up in the mountains, no more than a few miles away, and he was used to the depleted oxygen. But his lungs stung, and the back of his throat tasted like rust. Wolf’s relaxed attitude toward vigorous exercise for the past few months was catching up to him.

  During the six years of his life as an army ranger, Wolf had been in the kind of physical shape only achieved by the likes of top professional athletes or an Olympian. Army ranger school was designed to kill the spirit of men, and Wolf had endured it. And then, when it came to serving his country, to killing men and protecting his brethren, he did so in a way that stood out in his battalion. Exertion like this wouldn’t have even registered in his conscious mind back then.

  Today, Wolf still had a strong physique, as he’d had fifteen years ago, though it was a faint shadow of what it had once been. Once a bulky six-foot-three man pushing two hundred and thirty pounds of muscle, with the typical delta-shaped upper body of a ranger, now he was more thin and wiry, hovering around two hundred pounds. Now, rather than spending any time in the gym, he was hardened by spending more time outdoors than in, and by using his hands to fix, and haul, and bait, and shoot things.

  They reached a flattened part of the trail after the initial climb, and Wolf’s legs ached as he walked the flat ground. Rachette and Baine were close behind, panting through clenched teeth. They continued to an opening in the trees, where the trail cut through a small field of grass and wildflowers.

  Sergeant Connell stood grinning. “What’s the matter, guys? You need to hit the gym a little more with Uncle D and spend a little less time at the Sunnyside.”

  The Sunnyside Café was the best breakfast joint on Main Street, and Wolf thought the amount of time he spent there, at least three mornings a week, was just perfect. As far as spending more time at the gym went? Maybe Connell was right.

  Wolf stopped and turned. The field to the west meandered down a few yards and ended abruptly against the backdrop of a forested valley floor. It was like looking at the edge of an infinity pool. The grass just ended, and then there was nothing. It was the first of many cliffs, and Wolf knew he was looking at a sheer drop of at least twenty feet.

  “I already checked,” Connell said. “He’s not at the bottom of that one and not at the bottom of the next three, which you can see from up there. He must have fallen off the top.” He whistled. “Sure is a long drop from there. Shit.” There was more amusement than sympathy in Connell’s voice.

  Wolf turned back toward the way they’d come and then back toward the cliff.

  “Fine, take a look for yourself if you don’t believe me,” Connell said.

  “I’ll take your word for it,” Wolf said, looking down at the ground of the trail.

  “Seriously, you guys gotta get in the gym more,” Connell said. “Jesus, your face is pasty white, Rachette. What have you—”

  “Check this out.” Wolf pointed at a line of deep shoe prints in semi-dry, flat mud. He felt one of the prints.

  Rachette and Baine came over, and Connell put his hands on his hips and stayed put.

  “It rained two days ago, right?” Wolf asked.

  Rachette and Baine nodded.

  “A couple of inches dropped in a few hours. At least, that’s how it was in town.”

  “I’d say this trail got about the same amount,” said Rachette, seeing Wolf’s line of logic.

  “What?” Connell walked over, bent down next to Wolf and hocked spit on one of the footprints. “Whatcha got, Columbo?”

  Wolf glared at Connell and stood. “There are three sets of footprints here. Made after the rainstorm, which was two days ago, which puts the placement of these footprints right at the time Jerry Wheatman went missing. Which means we’re probably looking at Jerry Wheatman’s tracks.”

  “And two people he was with,” Rachette said quietly.

  “What? How do you know that? Those could be anyone’s shoe prints. Could have been that Wheatman went up by himself and decided to see if he could fly. Then two other completely unrelated people come up for a hike, don’t see a thing, then just head back down.” Connell shook his head and started walking up the trail. “Good try. I’m heading up.”

  “Then where’s Wheatman’s car?” Wolf asked.

  Connell stopped and frowned. “What?”

  “Wheatman’s car would still be sitting in the parking lot down there if he’d come up by himself. Rachette, Baine, take casts of all three of these. If you come across any prints pointing the other way, cast those, too. Catch up to us.”

  Wolf started after Connell, and Connell turned and set an even faster pace up into the trees.

  Chapter 4

  Another twenty-five minutes into the hike, Wolf came around a bend to find Connell sucking greedily on his water bottle at the base of a rocky incline.

 
; Wolf found it an odd place for Connell to stop, considering it was just below the top of the hike. Apparently Connell had abandoned his race to the top.

  Connell held out his water bottle to Wolf.

  Wolf frowned at him and shook his head with a small laugh. “No thanks. I’ve got my own. What’s going on? The top’s right there. Why’d you stop?”

  Connell shrugged as he took another long gulp. He finished and let out a long burp, pointing to the top. “After you, Sheriff.”

  Wolf gave Connell a long look and started up the incline. It was steeper than any part of the hike so far, and Wolf gripped the warm granite outcrops to keep his balance.

  “You’re not sheriff yet, you know,” Connell called from below.

  Wolf sighed and turned to Connell. “I know that, Connell. Believe me, I know that. Now should we keep going?”

  Connell didn’t say anything at first, just stared at Wolf. Finally, he smirked and repeated his earlier reply. “After you, Sheriff.”

  Wolf eyed him, and then scrambled up the rest of the trail, wondering what the hell that had been about, suddenly more aware of his surroundings.

  As Wolf summited the final incline, a wind bore into him, threatening to peel the Stetson off his head. He took it off and relished the short-lived breeze as it wicked the sweat off his closely cropped hair. He closed his eyes and let the warming sun and cooling breeze comfort him for a few seconds after the grueling exertion of the hike.

  The breeze stopped, and the air went quiet and still.

  Connell was still standing at the base of the incline below, still drinking from his water bottle. He was either sulking or contemplating something pretty hard. Wolf couldn’t tell which.

  Wolf took a deep breath and looked at the high plateau he was now on, which marked the end of the line for the trail. Ahead was a flat slab of rock, and to the left was a gradual rise into a dense pine forest, then the top of the mountain a hundred or so feet above that. And to the right was a sight that sent Wolf’s blood pressure up. A forty-foot drop straight down to a thin trail below.

  Wolf scanned his watch: 10:45. The hike had taken forty-five minutes. Their pace had been brisk, and the men below would be even faster. But the route was circuitous, and Wolf estimated they wouldn’t be in view below for at least another fifteen minutes.

  Wolf surveyed the area. The rock outcrop he stood on was large and expanded out in front of him. At some point in the past few thousand years, a mammoth chunk of rock had cleaved off and tumbled down to his right, leaving a near vertical cliff face and a field of boulders below. Wolf knew it was steep. The rock-climbing route up the face was given a grade of 5.11, considered difficult to all but the most skilled climbers.

  However one got to the top, whether climbing or hiking, the top offered a magnificent view to those who braved it. Bright flecks of light shimmered off the metal corrugated roofs and windows of tiny buildings on the distant valley floor like diamonds in the sun. The town of Rocky Points, Colorado: Sluice County’s biggest and most populated town, which wasn’t to say Rocky Points was a metropolis, by any means. Rather than suburbs of a city, surrounding the town below were seas of green meadows and darker green carpets of pine trees as far as the eye could see. Some of the rolling mountains jutted into the sky so high that there were no trees on them. Those that weren’t swallowed in storms at the moment gleamed with red, gray, and brown streaks of rock with the occasional white vein of snow that survived the summer.

  Two of these treeless peaks were jagged with rock spires looming over the town below. Underneath the peaks, a maze of grass- and flower-covered ski slopes were carved out of the dense trees. A web of steel ski lifts stitched the sides of the two mountains, and a network of condominiums and luxury mountain retreats pooled at the bottom of them.

  Wolf stepped forward onto the flat and took a deep breath. He wiped the bead of sweat sliding down his face and jammed his hat back onto his head, wishing the breeze would pick up again.

  The clouds to the south were dark green verging on black. Lightning flickered from within and the air shook with a constant rumble. It was only a matter of time before the skies would open up. Until then, it seemed it was going to be downright hot and humid.

  Something made Wolf look back toward the trees on the left. Something had caught the attention of his subconscious earlier—he was sure of it now.

  “What?” Connell yelled from below, seeing Wolf’s change of focus.

  “I think I found something,” Wolf said. He walked over to an oval discoloration in the rocky soil near the tree line. He bent down to inspect his find. It was a darker patch of soil covered with bright-green metallic flies. They burst into a buzzing cloud as he waved a hand.

  Wolf heard the shuffles and grunts of Connell below and immediately stood back up, stepped over the spot, turned back toward the cliff, and bent back down. There was no way he was going to leave his back turned to Connell with a forty-foot cliff a few paces away.

  Connell charged over the rise at a flying pace. “What? What the hell do you think you found now?” He sucked in air through his clenched teeth and spat off the cliff edge. “Fuckin’ Hardy boy.” There was a renewed rage in his voice.

  Wolf ignored him and eased a fingernail-sized piece of yellow spongy material from the confines of the slightly darker dirt, and then looked at Connell, who was gazing at the town in the distance.

  Wolf stood and listened. The ponderosa pines were still. Wolf was thankful there was no wind as he steeled himself for what he needed to do next.

  Focusing on his footing, and giving Sergeant Connell a wide berth, Wolf made his way to the ledge. Though the rock shelf was virtually flat, Wolf shuffled carefully forward, not risking a careless foot, a sudden lapse in basic foot–eye coordination that could end in a horrific death.

  Connell shook his head and chuckled. “After you.”

  Wolf looked to the cliff, and back at Connell. That’s when Wolf saw it—an unconscious widening of Connell’s eyes, and then the façade of a cool expression—a terrible poker face that Connell’s small brain had never been able to control in all the years Wolf had known him.

  Wolf’s pulse quickened as he looked up at Connell with narrowed eyes.

  “What?” Connell glanced at the trail below with a lazy expression. The officers were nowhere in sight.

  Connell walked toward Wolf slowly.

  Wolf studied the scene unfolding in front of him with a surreal interest, as if outside his body. Suddenly, Connell’s strange act at the base of the final climb made sense. Had Connell been thinking through this moment? Planning the unthinkable? Was Connell’s cork set to pop?

  “Well? Do you see him?” Connell was now a few feet away and steadily walking forward, his eyes focused behind Wolf.

  Wolf thought about the next few seconds of his life and then looked toward the cliff edge.

  Connell’s movement was lightning fast.

  Wolf hadn’t hesitated, though. As soon as Wolf turned away from Connell, he brought himself down into a crouch. The full force of Connell’s two-handed shove just missed sending Wolf over the edge. Instead, Connell’s palms bounced off the side of Wolf’s ducking head, ripping hair and sending Wolf’s hat flying over the precipice.

  As Wolf reached the low point of his squat, he lunged back toward the tree line, brushing past Connell’s legs as he ran the short distance to the trees.

  Wolf pulled his pistol, and before he could fully turn around, Connell was already on him, punching with bone-crushing force against his arm, sending Wolf’s pistol onto the ground a few feet away.

  Connell’s massive muscular frame lurched forward with outstretched arms, ducking into Wolf’s abdomen.

  Wolf had a slight height advantage, but Connell was a shorter and squatter rhino that would have no trouble tossing him ten feet in any direction, given the right leverage.

  Wolf sprawled his legs back and grabbed him in a headlock with all the strength he could muster, sending Connell face f
irst into the dirt. Growling low, Connell flailed with animalistic force underneath Wolf’s body.

  Wolf kept his legs wide and stiff, pushing Connell down, and then dug into Connell’s belt holster, clawing at Connell’s service Glock. As soon as Wolf got hold of it, Connell went berserk. With a vicious twist, he swung his arm back, knocking the gun off the granite and into a nearby bush.

  Wolf let go of Connell’s head, pushed off his shoulders, stepped back into the trees.

  They both stood still and locked eyes for a moment.

  “What the fuck are you doing?” Wolf’s voice was barely audible over the thumping of blood in his own ears.

  Connell ignored his question and stalked forward.

  Wolf scanned the ground for his own pistol. It was nowhere in sight. His eyes swept his surroundings for something he could use to gain the advantage. No fist-sized rocks, no sticks, no weapons of any kind. He cursed himself for leaving his Leatherman multi-tool in the center console of the truck.

  He looked back and saw a fallen tree—a thick branchless ponderosa pine log stretching horizontally like an oversized tripwire a few feet from the back of his legs.

  He turned to Connell, who was now approaching with steady small steps. Wolf shuffled backwards in retreat until he felt the wood against the back of his knees. Then he sat, flailing his arms and widening his eyes as he tipped on his rear-end in an uncontrolled-looking fall.

  Connell sensed his opportunity and charged like a linebacker, his hands outstretched, eyes focused on Wolf’s neck.

  Wolf laid back fast, grabbed underneath the log, and pulled himself under to the other side as Connell flew over.

  Connell landed with a grunt on the dirt and pine needles, and then turned to get back up.

  With all his might, Wolf lunged over the log at Connell’s rising form, and landed a head-butt against Connell’s nose with a wet crunch.