by Jeff Carson
“What are you doing?” Luke asked behind him.
Wolf wadded the rain fly in his hand and flipped it over the tent to the other side. “I’m packing up my stuff.”
She turned to Bishop and Greibel. “You guys good with that?”
They looked at each other and shrugged.
“I don’t think they came back and took a nap in our tents after they chased us down the mountain. They had a lot of work to do, and it looks like they got it done.” Wolf walked around and pulled out the remaining stakes. “You’ll find blood, hair, and plenty of other fluids with DNA in them in the soil sample they took over there. And we’ll find blood in the soil Deputy Allison picked up at the trailhead.”
Luke tilted her head and shrugged, then grabbed the rain fly off the ground and wrapped it in a ball.
The other three men got started on Jack’s tent, and before long they had the entire camp pulled down and packed in the two backpacks he and Jack had left.
A few minutes later, Bishop and Greibel were done packing their bags with the numerous samples and camera equipment, and they were ready to go.
Wolf insisted on carrying his Kelty pack on his good shoulder, and let McCall take Jack’s North Face.
“Let me take that,” Luke said to Wolf ten minutes into the hike.
The Kelty pack teetered on Wolf’s one shoulder, and Wolf had to walk at an angle to keep it from slipping, which it still did every ten steps.
“This is stupid. You’re hurt. I’m strong. Give me the pack,” she said.
“I got it, thanks,” said Wolf.
A few steps later the pack lightened, and was pulled off his shoulder. He twisted to grab at it, but she’d already yanked it out of his reach.
Before he could protest, Luke had it on both of her shoulders and was jerking down the straps.
He watched her get situated under the heavy load and then smile up at him, revealing a perfect set of white teeth.
“Thanks,” he said.
“You’re welcome. You can take your daypack.” She nodded at the ground.
He picked it up, put the five-pound weight on his good shoulder, and began walking.
Thirty minutes later they had navigated down the steep switchbacks at the top of the hike and were walking along the flat valley.
“So can you tell me more about this guy you saw on the trail?” Luke asked from a few steps behind Wolf.
“Yeah,” he said. “Like what?”
“Well, I heard about the tattoo, and I heard you said it was in the shape of the EOD badge.”
“I said it was the EOD badge,” Wolf said.
She walked quietly for a second. “And you have experience with Explosives Ordnance Disposal units enough to know that for sure?”
Wolf took a few more steps. “Yes.”
“Okay, so the tat was EOD. What about the guy? Like, how was he acting?”
“Like he was running from something. But when I asked if something was wrong, he completely ignored us. Like we weren’t there. He was spooked, and since I was with my son, it spooked me.” Wolf looked down the trail. McCall and the other two men were well ahead and out of sight.
“Yeah? And?”
“So I pulled my gun, and stopped him.”
She whistled. “Really?”
“Yeah, well. Something was way off. And I was right, wasn’t I?”
They were in a dense patch of forest now and a woodpecker knocked somewhere nearby. A breeze followed them down the path, bringing a whiff of Special Agent Luke to Wolf’s nostrils. She smelled like shampoo.
“Yeah, I guess you were,” she said. “So you let the guy go, saw his tattoo … and then you heard shots later?”
“Yeah. My son and I were setting up camp, right at sundown, and we heard two rifle shots.”
“You sure they were rifle shots? Not shotgun? Pistol?”
“Yeah, they were rifle shots. Supersonic rounds.”
Another silence from Luke.
“I guess a ranger would know the difference,” she said.
“Or any hunter,” Wolf said, ignoring the hint that she’d not only been looking into his story, but he himself before coming up this trail.
“Okay,” she said, “and the guy at the fire. Tell me about him.”
“He had a Steyr scout rifle with a white-phosphorous night-vision scope attached. The whole getup—the gun, his outfit, everything—seemed brand new. He had Cabela’s boots on, Carhartt pants, and a Carhartt jacket. All black.”
“Okay.” She walked a few steps in silence. “So what do you think that means?”
Wolf thought about his struggle with the man. The man had been sloppy. He’d landed a lucky punch, but other than that he’d been a strong guy who didn’t know how to leverage his strength against an opponent. “He wasn’t military.”
She said nothing for a few moments. “What else? Anything else about his appearance? Hair color?”
“I think red hair,” Wolf said.
“Red?” She sounded almost skeptical.
Wolf turned and looked at her. She kept her eyes on the ground.
“Yeah,” Wolf said, “or light blond. He had pale skin with three moles under his mouth. I remember the moles.”
She didn’t respond. Her questions had apparently run out, so Wolf concentrated on the hypnotic thump of his steps, thinking about a hot meal and a few hours of sleep in a soft bed.
For the next twenty minutes they walked without speaking, descending the mountain, all the while Wolf periodically catching the scent of Luke on the trailing breeze.
They finally reached the parking lot, where the three deputies were waiting in a huddle. Their two vehicles were all packed up and running, and McCall walked to his hatchback and pulled it up.
Wolf walked straight to it and set his daypack next to Jack’s backpack, which was already inside lying next to a plastic bin full of evidence bags and containers.
“How about I give you a ride,” said Luke. She nodded at McCall. “Do you mind?”
McCall shrugged and looked at Wolf.
“It’s just that I need to ask you a few more questions,” she said. “It’s important.”
“Okay.” He shrugged. “Fine with me.”
Chapter 18
Wolf and McCall followed her to her black Chevy Tahoe with tinted windows.
She clicked a button in her pocket and the lights blinked, and then she swung up the rear door. With ease she lifted Wolf’s heavy pack off her shoulders and laid it gently in the back, took Jack’s pack from McCall and did the same, threw Wolf’s daypack inside, and shut the door. Her movements were elegant, like a dancer’s, and showed her body to be flexible and strong.
“What?” she asked, and only then did Wolf realize they were staring dumbly at her every move.
They said goodbye to McCall, Bishop, and Greibel and climbed in the hulking SUV.
It must have been the latest model because the dashboard had more glass than knobs, and it still had that new-car smell inside. He brought the seatbelt across his chest and buckled it underneath his slung forearm—a move that was surprisingly painless.
He’d noticed that he felt his wound less and less as he moved more and more, but he knew the real healing was starting, and the pain would come back. It would probably return by the end of the car ride, and by tomorrow morning it would be a bitch.
“Jesus,” she said.
Wolf looked at her.
She was staring at his shoulder. “You’ve gotta clean and redress that thing.”
He looked down. There was a shiny pancake-sized blood spot seeping through the black sleeve of his jacket. He looked inside and saw that the bandage was sopping. “Oh, yeah.”
She fired up the engine and the inside of the SUV exploded in a deep rumble of bass with a funk drum beat over it. She pressed the button on the radio with lightning speed, sending the cab back into silence.
Wolf twisted a finger in his ear and looked at her.
She blushed and backed
up the SUV.
She drove cautiously down the road at a steady pace, and with a look of such intense concentration that Wolf opted not to speak for the thirty-five minutes it took to reach the highway. They headed north toward Rocky Points, through a wide treeless valley surrounded by towering white-veined mountains on either side.
She stepped on the gas and got up to a quick seventy miles an hour, then swerved to the oncoming lane and passed a gas truck.
“So, what do you think?” Wolf finally asked. “Where we at on this?”
“What do you mean?”
Wolf watched her check her rearview mirror, and then fumble with the side-mirror setting for a second.
“I mean we’ve just collected some evidence,” he said. “But how about the database? You think we can get somewhere with this tattooed guy? EOD? Tattoo on his neck? Can’t be too many men with that combination.”
“Yeah,” she looked at Wolf and raised her eyebrows. “Great minds.”
“What?”
She shook her head and pointed through the windshield. “Look, I’m really hungry. Do you want to stop and eat? We can talk there.”
“Yes,” he said. “God, yes.”
…
They pulled into a low one-story log building with a wooden sign that said Merritt’s in yellow letters.
Wolf stepped out onto the gravel parking lot and into a stiff wind. It was late afternoon on a cloudless early June day and the air had a cool bite to it.
He shut the door and waited as Luke got out, opened the rear door on her side, and then disappeared for a moment.
A few seconds later, she stood up, shut the door, and walked around the bumper with a manila folder in her hand.
A string of bells clanked as they entered the almost empty restaurant. A waitress held up a finger in their direction as she finished pouring a glass of water for an old man wearing a flannel jacket.
“Go ahead and seat yourself. I’ll be right there,” she said.
The old man stared at Luke, and so did the cook from the kitchen window.
Then Wolf stared at Luke as she led the way to a corner booth and sat down.
Wolf slid in opposite her, finding himself facing the wall.
Horseshoes, spurs, old farming equipment hammered from iron, black-and-white photos, and other western knickknacks that hung in ninety percent of other small restaurants in the mountains of Colorado hung everywhere.
The waitress came over, holding two plastic cups with her fingers inside each of the vessels. She dropped them at the edge of the table and sloshed some ice water inside, then grabbed two menus from her apron and tossed them in the center of the table.
“Can I get you a drink?” She looked at Luke.
“Coke, please.”
“Coke,” Wolf said.
The waitress left without a response.
Luke’s eyes narrowed. “She seems happy.”
Wolf took his glass of water and drank the whole thing in one breath.
Luke looked at him with wide eyes and pushed her glass in front of him.
Wolf pushed it back. “No thanks. I’ll wait for her to come back around. You take it.”
She pushed it toward him. “No, please. Take it. I can’t stop thinking about what was on those fingers of hers anyway, and apparently you have no problem with it.”
Wolf pulled the cup toward him. “What makes you think the Coke is going to be any cleaner?”
“You ever dropped a penny in Coke? I’ll take my chances.”
The waitress returned with their cokes and Wolf ordered two bacon cheeseburgers and fries while Luke ordered a club sandwich.
They waited for their food in silence, listening to Willie Nelson songs rattle out of an old jukebox and the sound of sizzling food coming out of the kitchen, all the while ignoring the manila folder on the table.
When the food came, Wolf finished his two bacon cheeseburgers with a speed just shy of a competition eater and then worked on his fries, feeling stronger and in a better mood as the nourishment coursed through his exhausted body.
Luke ate half of her club sandwich and appraised his plate with an amused smile.
A few minutes later, the waitress returned to take the plates away. When she was gone Wolf gestured toward the manila folder. “Okay, what’s inside?”
Special Agent Luke took a deep breath and sighed it out, then scooted the folder in front of Wolf and flipped it open.
Inside was a color photo of the tattooed man he’d seen on the trail.
Wolf narrowed his eyes and looked at Luke.
“I take it that’s the man you saw on the trail.”
Wolf pushed the folder across the table and sat back. “What the hell? You … knew about the guy on the trail? That whole time? Before you even came to meet us?”
She held up a hand. “No. I didn’t know for sure, until just now. You just confirmed my suspicions.”
“Okay.” Wolf glared at her. “Well, speak up. Who is this guy? How did you know about him?”
She scooped the picture back into the folder and slid sideways out of the booth.
Wolf sat still as she picked up the check and walked to the cash register.
She paid and then stopped at the door, looking toward Wolf with raised eyebrows.
Wolf stood up reluctantly, stared at Luke and made his way to the door. “See ya, Jennifer,” he said.
“Later, David,” the waitress replied without looking up from her stack of receipts.
Luke squinted at their interaction, and then moved out the door.
Chapter 19
Sergeant McCall drove in front of Deputies Bishop and Greibel in his SUV for thirty miles before he picked up his cell phone.
“Hello?” Greibel yelled into the phone. McCall could barely understand him over the classic rock blaring in the background.
“I’m going to stop and get gas, I’ll see you—”
“Just a second.” The shitty song finally quieted. “What was that, sir?”
“I’m stopping to get gas.” McCall kept his urge to scream into the phone at bay. “I’ll see you guys back at the station.”
“That’s all right—we’ll stop, too.”
“Nah, don’t worry about it. I gotta take a dump.”
“Ah.” Greibel paused like an idiot, and then laughed like one. “Okay, I get it. We’ll see you back there.”
The Conoco station came up fast, and McCall stepped on the brakes and swerved off the road. For an instant, he watched in the rearview mirror as Bishop turned with him. Then Bishop straightened and accelerated onward down the highway.
With an exhale of relief, McCall waved as the two deputies sped past. He pulled in and parked next to a gas pump, put in twenty bucks’ worth, and walked inside.
He nodded to the clerk behind the glass enclosure. “Box of Rain,” a Grateful Dead cut that was deep enough to suggest the clerk’s hippyness, vibrated out of the boom box on the counter. If that wasn’t enough proof that the kid was high on marijuana, then his dreadlocks, the beads around his neck, and his bloodshot eyes sealed the deal.
He stared at the clerk for a beat, hitched his duty belt, and then walked along the coolers to the furthest aisle.
The volume of the music lowered to barely audible, and McCall smiled to himself. He reached the island where the station sold hotdogs and pulled six napkins out of the dispenser. He held them in a wad in one hand and rested his other hand on his holster near his gun. He walked to the next aisle over, taking his time with each step.
He eyed the corn nuts, the candy bars, the chips, never altering his slow stride. Then he walked down the next aisle. And up the next. And down the next. And then he came to the first row of shelves he’d encountered when he’d walked in.
He stopped, bent down to pick up a small can of lighter fluid, and stood. Locking eyes with the clerk, he walked to counter.
“How you doing today, Officer?” The clerk’s stench of natural oils and body odor spilled out of the glass pod h
e sat in.
McCall plucked a pink lighter out of a Bic display and set it down without moving his face or breaking eye contact.
The clerk lowered his gaze and scratched his poor excuse for a beard, and then grabbed the can of lighter fluid from the counter with a shaky hand. He almost dropped it, and fumbled with it against his chest.
McCall tilted his head a little and scowled—like the clerk’s movement had somehow told him something.
The clerk scanned the lighter fluid with a beep, and then scanned the lighter. “Do you need a bag?” he asked, avoiding eye contact.
McCall dropped a five on the counter and waited for the kid to give him change. The clerk did so with haste, then held out his palm with a few coins. When McCall stood unmoving, the clerk put the change on the counter.
He picked up his items and change with controlled slowness, and walked out without saying a word.
He got in the SUV, pulled out, and accelerated to cruising speed up the highway. Then he chuckled with a smile and shook his head. He sucked in a breath and felt his face redden as shame washed through him.
He had just acted like his father in that gas station. Although his father probably would have taken it all the way and beat the kid with a can of soda until he admitted he was high and promised he’d never do it again. Then his father would have gotten hammered at the bar, and come home to his kids and his wife in an even darker mood.
McCall’s face dropped as he reflected on that.
He vowed then and there that he’d take a portion of his money and open a center in Glenwood, or maybe in Carbondale. So all those kids fucked up on drugs with terrible parents could come talk with someone who would listen. To help them.
He continued north on Highway 82 until he reached the outskirts of Aspen. Shit, who was he kidding, he could afford to open a center in the heart of Aspen. He really needed to learn how to think bigger. Especially now. As he cruised down Main Street, spying the clean buildings, the huge houses in the surrounding hills, the best that money could buy all around him, he allowed himself to do just that—to think bigger.