“Shit,” she said, her mind flashing on the image of a bear meandering into camp.
Maverick’s nostrils flared.
Cassie shouldered the rifle, rested it out the window, and then turned the light back on the poplar where her food hung. Nothing broke the dense cover toward the river. Nothing stirred.
After five minutes, Cassie shut the cap’s window, turned off her head lamp, and went back to sleep. Probably just a moose.
* * *
She woke an hour later to the dull drumming of a faraway motor and sat up. Maverick had returned to the same position, his eyes fixed out the back window. The motor wasn’t coming from the direction of the road; it was coming from the river.
Cassie checked her watch: 3:05 a.m.
Who would be out on the river this time of night?
The drone of the motor grew louder. It was approaching from the southeast.
The motor slowed and crept closer. Cassie could hear it idling for a few moments before it sputtered and threatened to stall. But then the engine roared, and it passed her camp and soon faded away. She rested a hand on the dog.
“Go to bed, Mav—”
CRASH!
Maverick sprung to his feet. Cassie fumbled for the rifle again before pushing up the cap window.
A small light blinked in the direction of the river.
She thought she heard muffled voices.
Her mind raced. Was someone in trouble? Was it just a couple of drunks out for a midnight cruise? Why did they stop in front of her campsite?
Cassie cinched the head lamp over her head and turned it on to find the pistol and holster. She threaded the holster through her belt and unlocked the rear window before climbing out of the pickup bed.
“Maverick, heel.”
The shepherd leaped out and buttonhooked to her side. With the holster snap undone, and the pistol within easy reach, she gripped the rifle at port arms. She pointed the head lamp toward the river, the beam scanning the willow thicket and the game trail. She walked past the fire pit and stepped over the log, pausing next to her tent.
The forest went eerily quiet. The hair on the back of Cassie’s neck started to rise and she had the uncanny sensation she was being watched.
“Anyone there?”
There was no reply. Maverick started to growl.
She waited for what seemed like an eternity, before hearing the crunch of dried dirt to her left, beyond the poplar tree.
Maverick reacted first and pivoted. Cassie whirled around. Her head lamp beam found the tree and then a figure standing at the base.
The explosion came from behind her in a flash of orange and reds, the concussive force knocking her over.
Cassie’s face smashed into dirt. Stunned by the blow, her ears rang, and she felt dizzy and realized her head lamp was gone.
Her mind went to her rifle. She groped the ground for the gun, seeing Maverick stagger up a few feet away. He barked, though she could barely hear him over the ringing. Then the dog went into full attack mode, reared, and tore off into the woods.
“Maverick!”
But he was gone.
She forced herself up onto her knees, and her right hand instinctively drew the Colt Python.
There was a loud thwack—like two heavy bodies colliding off in the forest. Then, Maverick’s howls of pain pierced the air.
Cassie got up fast, thumbing back the hammer on the pistol.
“MAVERICK!”
Something metallic clicked twenty yards to her right—Cassie tracked the sound and fired a shot. The pistol barked. The muzzle flash lit up the campsite. Something dark and hulking moved in the shadows. She fired again, blinking hard. Gun still up, she tried to determine if she hit her target.
A faint sound—pop. Something seemed to hit the dirt by her feet with a dull thud.
A hissing noise engulfed the campsite. A wet mist drifted across her face and clawed at her eyes. Cassie gasped. A sharp chemical odor seared her lungs.
She sputtered and choked. Her mind swam. Her limbs felt disjointed and her body began to spasm. She toppled to the ground.
Maverick’s wailing echoed in the distance as Cassie clawed at the dirt, wanting to stop the tremors that dominated her, desperate to fight the darkness she felt coming.
But the seizure only got worse before she felt herself falling away.
Chapter 7
LINCOLN, MONTANA
Wednesday, June 26th
JIM GALE TOOK his attention off the reddish cloud billowing on the western horizon, and the bits of gray ash falling from the sky, to gaze at the young, extremely rank mule thundering around his feed corral as if looking to murder someone.
Gale spit tobacco. “Alvin, I’d rather break ten pissed-off mares than another damn mule.”
Gale was in his midsixties, and though extremely fit, his body ached from sitting and his mind felt edgeless, the usual sensation one gets after driving six-odd hours straight. Plus, his damn allergies were kicking into overdrive with all the wildfires and smoke.
The record heat that gripped Big Sky country only made it worse and gave Gale the sensation of being in a constant dry sauna.
Alvin Petit, Gale’s senior ranch hand, hoisted a leather saddlebag over his shoulder and tipped his sun-bleached cowboy hat over his eyes. He leaned against the corral’s rusted metal gate and gazed at the angry mule still pounding around the corral in circles.
Petit said, “They make damn good pack animals once they’re broken in.”
“We don’t need another mule. I don’t want another mule.”
Petit smiled. “How about your new son-in-law breaks him for you?”
Gale looked beyond the other side of the corral fence to the three ranch hands loading saddlebags and leather panniers onto a train of horses in front of the lodge. The largest of the three men, Gale’s new son-in-law, Peter Trask, dropped one of the big panniers, and the other two ranch hands shook their heads and laughed.
“He’ll get the hang of it,” Gale said to Petit.
As a matter of fact, Gale was warming to his new son-in-law. While Trask’s outward appearance teetered on domineering, Gale knew he was a good kid at heart, a gentle giant who treated his eldest daughter like a queen. So Gale was trying to make Trask’s transition to ranch life as smooth as possible. Something Petit was reluctant to agree with.
“You can’t be too easy on him or he’ll never learn a thing,” Petit said, “and it pisses off the others seeing him get a free pass.”
“He’s not getting a free pass, Alvin. It’s just new to him.”
“I’m just saying, the Davis brothers have been working here for two years, and they feel like they’ve been treated a bit unfairly.”
“Unfairly?”
“It’s time to cut them some slack, Jim.”
“Not a chance,” Gale said. “They start bar fights in town, they’ve got to live with the consequences. It affects my reputation.”
“It’s been two months, Jim, and they’ve been itchin’ to get off the ranch.”
“Like I told them, they’re on my shit list till hunting season starts. They’re lucky I didn’t fire them in the first place. The amount of strings I had to pull with the sheriff.” Gale shook his head.
Petit looked to Gale’s truck pulled next to the corral—it was still running—and eyed Gale curiously. “How’d the trip go?”
“Politicians want what’s best for their pockets; ranchers can’t compete with the incoming developers. Same shit, different day.”
“What did the ranchers from Bozeman have to say?”
“What ranchers from Bozeman? Whole Gallatin Valley looks like a miniature Portland. High-end suburbs in every direction, next thing you know there’ll be a Whole Foods. Montana’s changing, Alvin.” Gale looked out over the golden rolling foothills of his ranch. “Only a matter of time until the rest of the world reaches us in our little plot of paradise.”
Petit sighed. “I know I sound like a broken record, but it’s
time you ran for office. Get Bill Cronin at the Rocking R Ranch to back you. Cronin throws a long net, not just in the county, but all over the state. If you ran, Jim, you’d win.”
“You know I could never be in the public eye, Alvin. Not with my history. Plus I couldn’t put my family back in the spotlight,” Gale said, looking over to the barn, and recalling the horrible memory. “Not since Derrick—”
Gale’s voice cut and he couldn’t finish the sentence.
“You’d get the veteran vote, too; half of Lewis and Clark County has served,” Petit said, in a soft voice.
“They’d just think I was politicizing a tragedy.”
“No, they—”
Gale held up his hand. “I stopped over at Tuck Cemetery on my way back. You picked a beautiful place, Alvin.”
“I didn’t pick anything,” Petit said. “The boys in his platoon did. Good bunch of kids. You would have liked them.”
Gale lowered his head, studied his dirty cowboy boots, and shifted his weight and grimaced.
“How’s the hip?”
“Doesn’t like long car rides,” Gale said, stretching his hamstring, as he looked at the mule. “We still set for a three o’clock walk?”
Petit looked toward the pack train. “Emily needs another half hour getting everything of hers ready to load. Two of the clients have food sensitivities.”
Loud laughter reverberated over to them.
Gale turned and looked at his place, the Whitehorse Ranch Lodge. The sprawling log cabin featured a wraparound front deck and wide, floor-to-ceiling windows that offered a tremendous view of the peaks of the Bob Marshall Wilderness to the north. Gale and the ranch hands had built much of the lodge themselves almost thirty years before: four bunk rooms in the lodge’s western wing, an industrial-size kitchen, living room, and dining room in the center, and his private residence in the east wing.
A dozen men came out of the front door and stood on the deck, overlooking the pack train, getting ready for their trip in the mountains. The men sipped from beer bottles. They all wore matching bone-white cowboy hats, new Levi’s, and matching blue flannel shirts.
Petit grumbled, “Never thought we’d be hauling dudes.”
“Like I said, Montana’s changing,” Gale said, eyeing the men. “What the hell’s with the getups? They look like a Chippendale act.”
Petit laughed. “Corporate retreat, app developers out of Silicon Valley, guess they wanted matching outfits to develop brotherhood or some nonsense. They brought enough gluten-free beer to drown a herd of steers.”
“Maybe we should send them to Bozeman,” Gale said. “They’ll fit right—”
A loud yell erupted from the horse train.
Trask stumbled backward into the lead horse. The horse whinnied in fright and kicked its hind legs. The big man took a hit and tumbled to the ground.
Sensing the lead horse’s alarm, the dozen other horses reared in panic, tearing at their lead ropes.
“Oh for Christ’s sake!” Petit roared.
Gale didn’t hear him; he was already over the corral’s feed gate and blowing by the mule. He jumped the second gate and sprinted to his son-in-law, grabbed him by the armpits, and dragged him away from the flying hooves. Petit came up behind them.
Trask pointed to a heap of saddle blankets on the dirt next to the lead horse and shouted, “Big snake! Big snake!”
Gale heard the rattling before he saw the diamondback. It was coiled in a defensive posture three feet from the horse’s front legs. The frantic horse rose and came down hard. The diamondback retracted its head, then struck, venom-soaked fangs missing by inches.
The horses in the middle of the train slammed into the hitching post and thrashed at their ropes.
“Untie them and get them into the corral!” Gale shouted, lifting his son-in-law to his feet. “Trask, get the gate open!”
Petit and the Davis brothers fought to untie the bucking horses.
Gale snuck up behind the snake, which coiled for another strike. Gale shouted to his ranch hands, “Where’s the snake stick?!”
Trask swung the horse corral gate open and yelled, “I don’t know!”
Gale knew he had to do something fast. He came up behind the snake and grabbed it by the shaking rattle. In one fluid motion, he pivoted and slammed the rattler on the ground.
It was still moving.
Gale’s hand flew to his belt and he drew his Colt Anaconda .44 Magnum from its holster.
BOOM!
The diamondback’s body jolted, then ceased moving.
Gale holstered his weapon. Trask and Petit came up behind him.
Picking up the snake, Gale handed it to his son-in-law.
“We kill something around here, we eat it. That’s the rule. And from now on, keep that snake stick with you when you’re working with my horses, you hear?”
“Yes, Jim,” Trask said.
Gale gazed over his son-in-law’s shoulder. The lead horse continued to whinny in agitation as the Davis brothers tried to calm him down.
Gale called the brothers off and approached the horse.
“Easy boy, easy now,” he said, his voice soothing.
The horse calmed down slightly, his eyes glued to Gale.
The clients on the deck watched in stunned silence.
Gale got under the lead rope, the horse snorted and pawed at the dirt. Gale put a delicate hand in front of its nose. Hot steam blasted his knuckles.
“You’re fine old boy, easy does it,” Gale said, as he unfastened the lead rope with his other hand. “C’mon, let’s go for a walk.”
Gale led the horse onto the driveway cul-de-sac and walked him in slow circles.
One of the dudes on the deck clapped his hands together and said loudly, “Talk about being in man-freaking-tana!”
Gale walked the horse back to the hitching post, and a shrill voice sounded over the commotion.
“What is going on out here!”
A small, pretty young woman with short, jet-black hair and piercing green eyes stood in front of the lodge’s entrance.
Petit wiped his hands on his Wranglers and walked away from the dudes, pointing over his shoulder.
“That damn husband of yours nearly let a diamondback make mincemeat of our horses!”
Trask dropped the snake and hurried toward his wife, holding his right arm.
Gale’s eldest daughter hopped down the stairs and went to her husband. Gale walked over and had Trask roll up his sleeve.
A welt the size of a baseball was swelling below the elbow where the horse’s hoof had clipped him.
“I’ll be fine,” Trask grumbled.
Gale said, “Get some ice on it before we head out.”
“And for the love of God, don’t be leaving saddle blankets out overnight for rattlers to be crawling in them, this ain’t the damn city!” Petit said, storming off into the lodge.
“That old bastard needs to cool it,” Emily muttered. “Pete’s still learning.”
“Alvin’s of a different generation, give him time,” Gale said, watching the old cowboy disappear inside.
“When did you get back from Helena?” Emily asked her father.
“About ten minutes ago.” He flicked his head to the large cloud on the eastern horizon. “That fire in Wolf Creek jumped the highway, had to turn back and take the Helmville route.”
“How’d everything go?”
“I’ll tell you about it later. All the meals packed?”
“Breakfast and lunch for five days. Petit said he’s got venison and that elk backstrap in the freezer he’s going to bring up for dinners,” Emily replied.
“Good, let’s get that diamondback skinned and into one of the coolers. I’m sure these California boys are itching to try it,” Gale said with a sly smile, then walked toward the lodge.
Emily called after him, “Oh, Dad. Someone’s been calling the office line all morning. I told him you were out of town and had your cell off. His number’s on your desk.”
>
“All right,” Gale said, his mind elsewhere. “Trask, pull my truck in the garage, keys are in the ignition. And let’s not serve the clients any more beer. I don’t want them drunk on my horses.”
Gale took his cowboy hat off and entered the lodge’s main room. It was a spacious living area containing a set of full grain leather couches, a flat-screen television, and a billiards table. European mounts of monstrous bull elk and mule deer bucks adorned the walls. He walked through the room to the stairway and could hear Petit cursing in the kitchen.
Gale climbed the stairs to the second floor and into his cluttered office. A blue sticky note sat on his keyboard. He went to the window, cranked the air conditioner, and loosened his collar.
Sinking into his desk chair, Gale grabbed the sticky note. The area code on the handwritten scrawl read: 907. That’s an Alaska number.
The name written above the number read: Dennis Price.
“Shit.”
He picked up the receiver on his office phone and dialed. A gruff man’s voice sounded on the other line, “High Water Rafting Expeditions. This is Dennis Price.”
Gale introduced himself, leaned over his desk, and grabbed a small snow globe with a miniature version of the Eiffel Tower in it. He shook the globe and watched the shards of white plastic create a faux blizzard in his hand.
Price cleared his throat. “I have you listed as an emergency contact for one of my new guides, Cassandra Gale; she’s your daughter?”
Gale stopped shaking the snow globe. “She is.”
“Well, Cassandra never showed up on Monday and she’s not answering either number I have listed for her.”
“Never showed up?”
“Her group left for the Arctic refuge yesterday, I was wondering if you’ve heard from her?”
Gale felt the muscles in his shoulders tense. He put the snow globe down on the oak desk. The afternoon light cut above the air conditioner and flooded across the rug-covered floor. He told Price that Cassie had left eight days before and he hadn’t heard from her since.
“She’s put me in a helluva bind,” Price said. “I had to scramble to find another guide last minute. You get ahold of her, tell her I’ll give her until tomorrow to get here before we’ll have to move along and find someone else.”
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