Текст книги "Endangered"

Автор книги: C. J. Box

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Текущая страница: 15 (всего у книги 19 страниц)

25

At the same time, Liv heard footfalls approaching and she quickly stopped digging around the rock. Most of the rock was exposed now, but it was still stuck fast. Liv’s fear that the stone was simply a spur of a much larger boulder had grown throughout the day but had recently been put to rest. The contours of the smooth ancient river rock were starting to round out at the back. It was, in fact, approximately the size and shape of a football. She’d cleaned enough of the packed clay from around it that she could now reach in and grab the top and bottom of the stone with both hands, although she couldn’t get enough leverage yet to work it free. It would take more time and effort.

The doors opened and large flakes of snow floated down into the root cellar. The sky was cream-colored, the sun muted behind heavy clouds.

Brenda said, “I wanted to see if you liked pork chops.”

“You’re asking me what I want for dinner?” Liv asked, surprised.

“Not if it’s something exotic the men won’t eat. But what about pork chops?”

“I like pork chops.”

“Then it’s settled,” Brenda said.

But instead of leaving, Brenda sat down on the lip of the doorframe. She was wearing an oversized barn coat over her housedress and her feet dangled down. Liv could see the woman’s thick ankles and her heavy, old-fashioned shoes. She wore support hose and there was a bulge of white fat above the top of the hose.

“There’s supposed to be a big winter storm coming,” Brenda said. “By midnight tonight, we’re supposed to really get hit. Is that heater working okay?”

“Yes.”

“You got enough sleeping bags and all?”

“I think so. They don’t smell so good, though.”

“They smell like the guys,” Brenda said. “Beggars can’t be choosers, you know.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Liv said, wondering if Brenda was going to go away.

After a long beat, Brenda said, “I brought this,” and held something out in her hand. It was a hairbrush.

“I appreciate that,” Liv said. “Are you going to drop it down to me?”

“I was actually thinking I’d come down there and brush your hair. It’s something I’ve been thinking about. Would you be okay with that?”

Liv felt an equal mix of panic and revulsion. Brenda behind her, brushing her hair? The idea of it almost made her physically sick. But if she could actually get her down here . . .

Liv glanced at the stone in the wall. Maybe with enough adrenaline rushing through her she’d be able to jerk it out and brain Brenda.

“I’d love it,” Liv said.

Brenda said over her shoulder, “Bull, lower that ladder.”

Liv’s heart sank. She hadn’t realized Bull was right there with her, but out of view.

“Keep close and have that pistol handy,” Brenda said to Bull. “Pop her if she tries anything.”

“Okay, Ma.”

Brenda said to Liv, “You’re not going to do anything stupid, are you?”

Liv closed her eyes, fighting away tears. “No.”

“You want your hair brushed?”

“Yes.”

–

LIV SAT with her back to the stone in the dirt wall so that when Brenda brushed her hair she wouldn’t glance up and notice it. Liv wished she’d had more warning they were coming so she could have packed more loose dirt around the rock than she had.

The teeth of the brush actually felt good coursing down through her hair, although Brenda was a little rough at first, pulling it hard through tangles.

“Your hair is nice,” Brenda said. “Is it always like this or do you treat it somehow?”

“I get it straightened.”

“What would it be like otherwise?”

“It would be natural.”

“You mean like an Afro?”

“Yes.”

Brenda clucked her tongue. She said, “I can’t even imagine.”

Up at the compound, an engine started up with a high whine. Then it revved up fast.

Brenda called to Bull, “Did Dallas get that snowmobile started?”

“Sounds like he did.”

Brenda chuckled. “That boy—he’s a go-getter. There’s nothing he loves more than getting up into the mountains on his snowmobile. When I told him about this storm moving in, he just lit up.”

“Didn’t he get injured at a rodeo?” Liv asked, making small talk.

“Yeah, sort of.”

The answer perplexed Liv for what it didn’t say.

Brenda said, “I’ve never seen a human recover so quick. He’ll be back in the game in a few days at this rate. I wish I could come back after getting hurt like he does. But he’s always been fast in whatever it is he chooses to do. He’s an exceptional person, and I ain’t just sayin’ that because he’s my boy. I just wish the folks around this county would give him his due.”

“They should,” Liv agreed, trying anything to establish common ground. “How did Dallas get injured? Was it a bull?”

“Yeah, in Houston. But he didn’t get hurt that bad. Dallas got thrown in front of a big crowd of people and that probably hurt him more than anything else,” Brenda said. “It wasn’t until he got back here that he got those busted ribs and got his shoulder pulled out of the socket.”

Liv was confused. Brenda must have sensed it.

“I had to have Eldon and Bull do it. Dallas agreed, but it isn’t any fun to watch your husband and your oldest son beat the crap out of your youngest. Pulled his arm out of the socket and busted in his ribs. I had to turn my head when they done it.”

“Why?”

“Oh, it’s a long story,” Brenda said. “Dallas did something he shouldn’t have done. I had to figure out a way to keep him out of it. See, I’m the only one who does any thinking around here.”

“I believe it,” Liv said. “So why was injuring Dallas a good thing for him?”

“Wasn’t just him. It was for the whole family. I look after my whole family and keep ’em on the right path. I don’t let anyone get in our way. Anyone. I saw when they sent Timber away to Rawlins what happens when I don’t stay on top of ’em. Timber’s my middle son. He’s the wildest of them all and he got out of prison this morning.”

There was a pause. Brenda pulled the brush through and Liv mewed. It was a false emotion, but to Brenda it sounded genuine.

“You like that, huh?” she asked softly.

“I do,” Liv said. Then: “It’s too bad you didn’t have daughters.”

“Yeah,” Brenda said wistfully. “Boys is all I know. It was the same growing up. I had two brothers and I was the only girl. I don’t even know how to talk to other women—they always seem too soft and emotional to me. Most women, it seems to me, should get the crap kicked out of them by a couple of brothers like I did to toughen ’em up.”

Liv lied and said, “My brother did the same thing to me growing up.” In fact, she had no brothers.

Brenda said, “My dad bounced around between being a miner and a logger in the Ozarks. That’s where my people are from: Jasper County, Missouri. A lot of the time he didn’t work at all. But I was the apple of his eye.”

“I thought I heard a little of the South in your accent,” Liv said.

“Yeah, and I’ve never been back. I left when I was sixteen. I came to Wyoming to see Yellowstone Park with my uncle Harold. I’m still surprised my folks let him bring me out here, but they did. Uncle Harold raped me a few times and left me in one of those cabins they’ve got in the park. That’s where I met Eldon. He was driving through Yellowstone to go hunting on the other side. He picked me up on the road. We caught up with Uncle Harold in Cody, and Eldon beat him half to death with a rifle butt near Heart Mountain. We’ve been together ever since.”

Brenda’s tone was calm. Liv swallowed hard.

“But back to my dad. When he was home, we’d listen to records together.”

“Is that where you heard Kitty Wells?”

“Oh, that,” Brenda laughed. “I must have been a sight back then, singing that song about cheating when I was just a little girl.”

Liv hummed the tune, and to her surprise Brenda joined in.

“What the hell is going on down there?” Bull said from above.

Liv faked a laugh. “My mom used to sing it around the house.”

“Did you have a daddy?” Brenda asked. She sounded curious.

“He worked on shrimping boats,” Liv said. “He died when I was five.”

“Mmmmm.”

“I don’t remember much about him.”

“Better that,” Brenda said, her voice hardening, “than him showing up whenever he felt like it. My brothers were animals, and they needed a man around to set them straight. He wasn’t there when he should have been. He was mean when he got drunk and he knocked Mama around. Then he’d feel bad about it, but instead of making it up to everyone, he’d take off again.

“I swore back then that if I found a man, I’d make him stay close to me and his kids. I thought I could tame Eldon of his wild hairs, but over the years I’ve learned how to handle him instead. I’m close with my boys, and Eldon is . . . there. I wish he’d take more interest in them, but he’s not much for ambition in any department except hunting and fishing. So I wore him down, which is the next best thing to having a good man in the first place. He doesn’t even know how to think for himself anymore, which is a good thing, because I do it for him and I do it better. I know that sounds harsh, but it’s the best for the family.”

Liv thought: She’s proud of her boys?

And she realized right then that Brenda was even crazier than she’d realized.

–

“MEN ARE SUCH SIMPLE CREATURES,” Brenda said, keeping her voice down so that Bull couldn’t overhear. “You and me, we have a thousand things going on in our minds at all times. It gets noisy in there. But men are different. They can’t hold more than one thought in their brain at a time. It’s ‘I’m hungry,’ or ‘I’m horny,’ or ‘I need to fix the transmission or this truck won’t run.’ If they could ever get inside our brains, the hullabaloo going on would probably kill ’em in a few minutes. And if we could ever get inside theirs, I suspect we’d get bored real fast with all the peace and quiet.

“But you probably know that, because you’re pretty and they fall all over themselves to get next to you. But when you’re plain and you look like me and don’t know fashion from cow plop, you learn to appeal to other base instincts, like food.

“If you look like me, you learn to cook. You find out what they like and you give it to ’em—and plenty of it. If you do that, they’ll do anything you want. Fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, chicken-fried steaks, pot roast—whatever. Waffles and fried chicken will be enough to convince them to go into a barn and gun down Nate Romanowski. It’s simple, girl. Do you cook?”

“A little.”

“Of course, you have other ways, don’t you?”

“Like what?” Liv asked.

Brenda bent closer. “Like luring Bull down here.”

“He did that himself.”

“Sure he did.”

–

“SO WHY DID BULL and Eldon beat up Dallas?” Liv asked. “I don’t understand.”

The question was met with silence. When Brenda spoke, her tone was flat.

“He had to look like a bull tore him up. He couldn’t just fake it.”

“But why?”

“I told you,” Brenda said with annoyance. “Dallas could have gotten in trouble. This way, he got hurt a little, but he didn’t get arrested or nothing. He’s still with us and he’s just about recovered.”

Liv asked, “Why did Eldon and Bull ambush Nate? Did they have something against him?”

“Not at all,” Brenda said. “In fact, I think they kind of liked him.”

“Then why did they do it?”

Brenda scoffed. She said, “Anyone around this county knows that when the game warden gets in a situation, Nate Romanowski shows up to help him out. No one wants Nate around on the other side. That guy is crazy.”

“I’m not following you,” Liv confessed.

“I told you. Dallas did something stupid. It involved the game warden’s daughter. We were able to handle the game warden—he’s by the book and not that bright. He even came out here and saw Dallas, and he seen for himself that the boy was injured after all.”

Liv recalled the item she’d read in the Casper newspaper about Joe’s middle daughter being found beaten on the side of a road. Liv’s stomach suddenly turned, but she tried hard not to show any reaction.

Brenda continued. “But Joe Pickett doesn’t let things go. I’ve watched him over the years and I know that about him. If he told his buddy Nate that he suspected Dallas, even though he couldn’t prove it, well, Nate may come a-calling. I didn’t want Nate after my boy. So we put the word out there and lured you up and took him out before he could get together with his friend Joe Pickett and hear the story. It was a precautionary thing. We bought ourselves insurance, is all. Any mother would do the same thing for their boy if they thought they had to do it to keep him alive.”

“So it was all a preliminary strike,” Liv said. “You killed Nate just in case.”

“Pretty much,” Brenda said. “And it wasn’t easy. I had to look my husband and son in the eye and say, ‘Get in that barn and get ready. He’s just a man. There’s nothing special about him.’ Finally, they went in there and got set up. I wasn’t sure they’d go through with it until I heard the shots.”

Liv boiled inside, but she tried not to show it.

“I didn’t know you’d be with him,” Brenda said. “You were sort of a kink in my plans.”

“What happened to the van?”

“Eldon’s good for something,” Brenda said. “He knows every inch of this country out here because he guides hunters in the fall. He knows where to hide a vehicle where no one can find it.”

“Why are you telling me all this now?”

Brenda went back to brushing Liv’s hair. “Might as well.”

Those words weren’t chosen at random, Liv thought.

“You said you had a plan for me. Can you tell me what it is?”

“I’m not sure you want to know.”

Liv said, “You could let me out of here. I could help you around the house. I could be the daughter you never had. Or I could leave and never say a word to anyone.”

“You know neither one of those is a good choice,” Brenda said. “If you stayed, somebody would see you and wonder why a black girl was living with us. They’d wonder where you came from and somebody would figure it out. And there’s no way you can convince me you’d keep this all to yourself. Women aren’t made that way.”

“I am.”

“Oh,” Brenda said, bending forward again and whispering a few inches from Liv’s ear, “if only that were true.”

Liv closed her eyes. She thought about wheeling in her chair and plunging her thumbs into Brenda’s throat. If Bull wasn’t up there, she would have done it.

“I want to know,” Liv said.

“I’m waiting on Eldon,” Brenda said. “He’s got to go get his tank filled up. Then instead of dumping it at the treatment plant, he’s going to bring it back here.”

It took a moment for Liv to realize what she’d just heard.

“He’s going to dump sewage in the cellar?”

“Pretty much,” Brenda said in a conversational tone. “Then he can fire up the Bobcat and fill the rest of the hole with dirt. If anybody ever gets a notion to dig it up, they’ll realize this hole is full of sewage. There’s no way they’d keep digging and eventually find a body. We’ll just tell ’em our septic tank must have leaked.”

Liv closed her eyes.

“So you were asking me about pork chops. Is that because it’s my last meal?”

Brenda snorted, stopped brushing, and backed away.

She said, “Bull, cover me. I’m coming up.”

Dirt sifted into the cellar from the edge as Bull bent over and peered in. Liv saw that he was holding her handgun.

She turned her head to see Brenda clumsily mount the ladder and start to climb. She grunted on each rung.

Liv stood and approached the clay wall and grasped the stone and pulled. It didn’t budge.

As Brenda awkwardly climbed the ladder out of striking distance, she said, “Oh, I don’t know about it being your last meal. I might bring you some breakfast, so put all those containers and the silverware back in the bucket tonight so I can pull it up.”

When Brenda was out of the cellar, she said, “Thanks for letting me brush your hair. Maybe if it was different circumstances, we could have actually been friends, you know?”

Then to Bull: “Close it.”

Liv waited until the footfalls faded away, then turned back to the stone.

It shredded her to know that she might have missed the only chance she’d ever have.

26

It made a warped kind of sense, Joe thought. If Eldon Cates needed to hide a vehicle fast, where better than an elk camp that was unknown to everyone, including the game warden?

Revis Wentworth had given Joe an all-important clue to the location of the elk camp simply by describing which direction the two vehicles were going on the two-track road across the sagebrush bench. Joe had been on the road before, of course, when he’d found Lek 64. He’d taken a more established county road to the two-track, and when he intersected it, he’d turned east.

Several years ago, Joe had taken the road west through the foothills of the Bighorns and on into the timber. At the time, he was looking for a promontory, or high-altitude point, where he might “perch” and glass the terrain with his spotting scope. The road was little used, and Joe had given up looking for an opening in the timber as he ascended the mountain. It was difficult even finding a place to perform a three-point turn because the lodgepole pines were so thick.

His district was 1,800 square miles of mountains, plains, and broken country. There were hundreds of ancient two-tracks running through it, most leading nowhere in particular. If they didn’t lead to an obvious destination or were rarely used by hunters or fishermen, he simply forgot about them, like he had with this nameless path.

The western direction of the two-track from the sagebrush bench into the mountains would be convenient for an elk outfitter like Eldon Cates, he thought. Eldon could access it from his compound down below in the valley and never cross a highway or county road, therefore not likely to be seen by hunters or anyone else. The land the two-track crossed was a confusing mix of BLM, U.S. Forest Service, and private land. It was a baffling checkerboard on the map and likely to deter visitors. So it was perfect for Eldon.

If Joe was guessing right, anyhow.

Something else made sense, now that he thought about it. He’d wondered how it was that April’s possessions had been found at Tilden Cudmore’s place and in his vehicle if Cudmore wasn’t responsible for her attack. Or how Nate’s assailants had accessed the HF Bar Ranch through a locked gate and not been seen.

Although he had to first confirm the existence of the secret elk camp and that the Yarak, Inc. van was hidden there, dots were suddenly connecting.

–

HE HIT THE SPEED DIAL on his phone as his tires sizzled on the wet highway.

“County Sheriff’s Department,” the receptionist said.

“I need to talk to Sheriff Reed.”

“Joe?”

“Yes.”

“He’s in a meeting.”

“Get him out, please.”

The snow was sticking to the green shoots of grass on the side of the highway, and the storm was moving over the tops of the mountains and coming down the western side like rolls of smoke. Joe had his windshield wipers on low and the defroster on. He thought he could find the camp and get out before dark and before the storm enveloped the Twelve Sleep Valley.

“Reed here. What is it, Joe? I’m in a budget meeting with the county commissioners.”

“I got a lead,” Joe said. “Revis Wentworth was at Lek Sixty-four last Tuesday and he said he saw two vehicles crossing the sagebrush into the mountains. One fits the description of Eldon Cates’s old Suburban. The other fits the description of the white van Nate was driving the day he got ambushed.”

Reed paused. “What are you saying exactly?”

“That the Cateses were involved in the shooting. Either they did it on their own or somebody hired them to remove Nate’s van from the scene. They’re implicated one way or another. Moving that van made everyone wonder where Olivia Brannan had gone after the shooting and made people think she must have been in on it. But it doesn’t sound like she was there when Wentworth saw the two vehicles. The descriptions he gave me of the drivers sound like Eldon and Bull.”

Reed said, “Why would they go after Romanowski? What’s the connection there?”

“I don’t know. I’ve been trying to figure it out myself.”

“This is coming out of left field,” Reed said. “How are we going to prove anything? Do you need a couple of my guys?”

“Not yet,” Joe said. “But you might want to let them know what’s going on so they’ll be ready. I’m on my way up the mountain to see if I can find that van in Eldon Cates’s elk camp. If I find it, we can go after Eldon.”

“In this storm?”

“It’s just snow, Mike,” Joe said. “It doesn’t look to be as bad as they were predicting. If we only worked in good weather, we wouldn’t get much done around here, would we?”

Reed snorted.

“There’s another thing,” Joe said. “I’ve been thinking about Tilden Cudmore.”

“What about him?”

“We all wondered how he could possibly be innocent in regard to April’s attack after her stuff was found on his place and in his car, right?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I want you to think about something,” Joe said as he turned off the highway onto the county road that would lead him to the Lek 64 two-track. No one had driven on the road since the snow started, and it was untracked. “Think about patrolling this county every day. You—and me—always keep an eye out for anything unusual. We notice cars we’ve never seen before, or out-of-county plates. We notice out-of-state plates, or pickups with two or three men inside—that kind of thing. But what we don’t notice is normal activities. We just kind of shunt them aside.”

“I’m not quite getting what you’re saying,” Reed said.

Joe continued. “We don’t even see the propane truck making its rounds. We don’t notice the mail carrier on her route or the garbage service. We see them so often, they turn invisible, because we’re only tuned to people and activities that aren’t part of the day-to-day. They hide in plain sight.”

Reed said, “Like a sewage-service pump truck.”

“Exactly,” Joe said. “Like C&C Sewer and Septic Tank Service. I probably see that truck, or trucks like it, five times a day and never even think about it. You probably do, too. They’re all over, but we just don’t see them.”

Reed said, “Hold on.” Joe could hear the sheriff speaking to someone while he held the phone away from his mouth. “Tell the commissioners it’s going to be a minute.”

Then back to Joe: “I see where you’re going with this. You’re saying Eldon could have planted evidence at Cudmore’s place and in his vehicle and no one would have given a second glance. He could roll his pump truck onto Cudmore’s property and no one would even look up.”

“Right,” Joe said. “And I bet if you take a look at that big key ring Eldon has on his belt, you’d find a key to the front gate of the HF Bar. They probably have a contract with him and they wouldn’t even notice him when the ranch is in full swing. He comes and goes, and his pump truck is big, but it’s also invisible.”

“I hear you,” Reed said. “But if what you’re saying is true, you’re back to thinking it was Dallas who beat April and dumped her. That the Cates family was covering for him by planting evidence at the Cudmore place.”

Joe said, “Yup.”

“It also means an innocent man hung himself in my jail because of the pressure we put on him.”

“Unfortunately, yes.”

“Tilden Cudmore ended up like Tilden Cudmore always thought he would: persecuted by the government.”

“You said it, not me.”

“That’s a lot of speculation, Joe.”

“It is.”

“But it sort of makes sense.”

“It does.”

“We need real evidence before we can move on anything, but I’ll run this by Dulcie and see if she can shoot any holes in it.”

“Good.”

“Still, though,” Reed said, “it doesn’t account for a couple of things. One, why did they ambush Nate Romanowski? Two, what happened to Olivia Brannan?”

Joe almost overran the two-track that intersected the county road, but he recognized it and turned right.

He said, “I just found the road into the mountains and I’m taking it. We may lose our connection real soon.”

“Call me on my cell phone either way,” Reed said. “I’ll reschedule this damned meeting I’m in and call Dulcie. We’ll be ready to move if you find something.”

–

BECAUSE THE SNOW was coming from the west as the storm barreled down the mountain, it now swirled like a white kaleidoscope in front of the windshield. The volume of it had increased since he turned off the highway.

Joe couldn’t focus his vision in the distance so he concentrated on keeping his front wheels in the two-track. Daisy seemed to sense his anxiety and she put her big head on his lap. She was warm so he didn’t push her away.

The snowstorm was both good and bad, he thought. It was unlikely the Cateses would be out and about and see him on the road from their compound. But if the intensity of the snow kept building and turned into a patented Rocky Mountain spring whiteout, he ran the risk of getting lost or stuck.

Joe keyed the button on his dash-mounted GPS to record his current location. If nothing else, he’d be able to find his way back to where he started.

–

THE ONCOMING SNOW stopped swirling once he entered the trees at the base of the Bighorns. Instead, it sifted down through the pine branches like fine flour.

The lodgepoles closed in as the pickup serpentined up the mountain in a long series of switchbacks. A mile up the grade, the road got rougher and the canopy of branches closed in over the top of the cab. He remembered turning around at about this spot the first time he’d ventured up.

But it felt right, he thought. If Eldon’s camp was up ahead, the last thing Eldon would do would be to improve the access road. The grade and condition of the road itself would turn back most visitors.

Then: Whump.

Joe nearly lost control of the steering wheel when something hit the passenger side of his truck. Daisy’s head jerked up with alarm.

He looked over to see the mirror had struck a thick branch and had folded back against the passenger window. Joe looked at his reflection and observed, He looks worried.

And he was.

The tires ground over large slick rocks now, pitching the pickup right to left as it climbed. Snow-covered boughs smacked the windshield and dumped more wet snow over the hood.

Joe upped the speed of his wipers to compensate and to keep the glass clear.

“We’re going to find it and get out,” he assured Daisy. She looked up at him as if she understood.

–

HIS SITUATION CRYSTALLIZED as he shifted into four-wheel drive low to continue the ascent. Whether or not he found Eldon’s camp, he could be in trouble. He could easily imagine getting high-centered and stuck on the boulder-strewn path during an epic spring storm. He was out of cell tower range and his radio crackled with static. Even the satellite phone he kept in his gear box in the bed of the pickup would likely not get a signal through the thick canopy of snow-covered branches overhead.

There were no openings in which to turn his truck around, and there was no way he could back it out down the switchbacks he’d taken. He had no choice but to keep going up.

–

SOUR THOUGHTS came to him as he climbed.

He’d assumed the Yarak, Inc. van had followed the Suburban up the trail. But how could a two-wheel-drive van have gotten up there, considering the fact that his pickup was barely making it?

He realized he might be completely wrong about the scenario he’d laid out for Reed.

Revis Wentworth could have lied about the two vehicles, or been so drunk he got the direction and the road they were on incorrect.

Joe imagined a fruitless grind up the eastern face of the Bighorn Mountains that resulted in him getting his pickup hopelessly stuck and him traipsing back down in knee-high snow at the same time his daughter was being brought out of her coma in a Billings hospital.

Then the road leveled, and even through the thick snowfall, he could see a slot in the rock wall ahead that appeared wide enough to drive his truck through.

–

THE STRIATION THAT FORMED the granite wall stretched out as far as he could see in either direction. Behind and above the twelve-foot wall, the timbered mountain continued to climb. But on the other side of the slot, there appeared to be an opening in the timber, a clearing.

He jumped out of his truck to move a log that blocked the entrance. As he moved it, he noticed how simply it came up and swung to the side. None of its branches were embedded in the ground and the base of the log was cut cleanly, meaning it had been moved before. Perhaps many times.

Joe got back in his pickup and slowly drove into the middle of Eldon Cates’s elk camp.

–

WEATHERED GRAY CROSS POLES had been chained to the lodgepole trunks to hang game carcasses. Each had a rusty block-and-tackle assembly at the midpoint of the game pole.

Several square-shaped tent sites were aligned around a blackened fire pit. Broken glass winked within the pit, as did beer bottle caps. Metal boxes were stacked against the inside granite wall. They were locked and bear-proof.

It was a terrific location for an elk camp, he thought. No wonder Eldon kept it a secret.

The white Yarak, Inc. panel van was located against the thick wall of trees on the south edge of the camp. It didn’t look to be parked there as much as pushed there.

Joe approached it on foot with his shotgun barrel resting in the crook of his left arm. He noticed that both the front and back bumpers were practically wrenched from the van’s frame, probably from tow chains they’d used to pull the vehicle up the rocky road.

He photographed the van from several angles as he got close to it. Other than the bumpers, it didn’t appear to be damaged.

Joe took a breath before peering inside. He braced himself, hoping he wouldn’t find Liv Brannan’s body on the floor of the van. He exhaled his relief.

After pulling on a pair of leather gloves so he wouldn’t leave additional fingerprints on the surfaces, he opened the vehicle and shot the interior with his camera. He recognized the hoods and jesses hanging from the inside walls as Nate’s. Joe wondered what the Cateses had done with the falcons. He hoped they were still alive.

–

BACK AT HIS PICKUP, Joe tried again to see if he could raise a signal on his cell phone or radio. Nothing.

He dug his satellite phone from the back gear box and he tried to get a signal through the snowfall and tree canopy. It didn’t work, either.

It was oddly quiet within the elk camp. Snow floated straight down and muted outside sound. There was about three inches of snow on the ground now, but not enough to be concerned about. How beautiful it looked, he thought. Even the worst scenes could be improved by a layer of white snow.