Back of Beyond

8

Sixteen-year-old Danielle Sullivan was furiously texting her on-again off-again boyfriend Riley as fourteen-year-old Gracie Sullivan looked on. Their father drove the rental car and pointed out bison far below in the valley and two distant elk crossing a river in the early morning sun. Danielle and Gracie were in the backseat.

“I’m surprised he’s even up this early,” Gracie said to Danielle. She marveled at her sister and the desperate fire in her eyes as she tapped out messages with a blur of her thumbs.

“He’s got to get up early for work,” Danielle said, not looking over. “Remember-he’s got that stupid job with the grounds crew with the schools. They make him show up every morning at eight. They’re evil.” Gracie nodded and snapped her phone open. She didn’t expect any messages although she’d be ridiculously thrilled if there were any. There weren’t, so as she often did in the presence of her beautiful, popular, constantly in-demand sister, she tapped out a message to her own phone via her e-mail account:

How are you this morning?

When it came through, she wrote:

Crappy start, but thanks for asking.

I’m sorry.

Don’t be. Things are looking up. WE’RE IN YELLOWSTONE PARK.

Even though Danielle thought Gracie pathetic for spelling out all the words in her texts rather than using text-speak or shorthand, Gracie thought there was no harm done since she was, in effect, talking to herself. It was a scheme she’d come up with to make Danielle think she had admirers in constant contact as well.

You’re up early.

I couldn’t sleep. I kept thinking I forgot something.

Like what?

Toothbrush. Glasses. I got up at 2:30 to make sure I packed underwear. I had a nightmare I didn’t bring underwear and I had to borrow a f**king thong from Danielle.

She lowered the phone to her lap with the screen facing away from her sister and looked through the window. There were no buildings, no roads, no power lines. To the south was a vast river valley with tall grass that rippled in the cold morning breeze. A ribbon of river that looked like sheet metal serpentined through the valley floor. To the north the terrain seemed to swell and rise to meet tendrils of pine trees, and above them a dark wall of forest.

“Oh my God,” her dad said as the car slowed suddenly. “Look, girls: wolves.”

Gracie snapped her phone shut and hurled herself forward. All her life she’d wanted to see a wolf.

Her dad pulled over to the side of the two-lane blacktop and rolled down his window. The small of pine, sage, and cool fresh air wafted in. He pointed toward the river.

“See them, at that bend? Near those big rocks the sun is starting to hit?”

Gracie threw her arms over the front seat and squinted where her father was pointing. Far below, she saw movement.

“They look like dots,” she said. “Two little dots.”

“They’re wolves,” her dad said. “Aren’t they magnificent?”

Magnificent dots, she thought. She wished she could see them closer or figure out what they were doing to make them seem magnificent to her father, who tended toward hyperbole.

“Here,” her father said, handing her a pair of binoculars that still had the price tag on them. “You focus using that little wheel in the middle.”

While Gracie tried to manipulate the binoculars and frantically rolled the wheel all the way to the left and then to the right and finally realized she was bringing the hood ornament into sharp relief, she heard her dad say to Danielle, “Don’t you want to see these fantastic animals, Danny?”

“Maybe in a minute,” Danielle said, still texting.

“They may be gone in a minute,” he said, trying to disguise the disappointment in his voice.

Gracie finally figured out where to point, and started bringing the animals into focus.

“Dad, it’s not like we won’t have a chance to see wolves,” Danielle said, not looking up from her phone. “Aren’t we going to be in the middle of nowhere for five friggin’ days? We’ll be sleeping with wolves. Like that movie.”

Gracie mumbled, “Dancing with wolves, not sleeping with them,” as she brought the animals into sharp detail.

“Whatever,” Danielle said sharply.

“I think there’s a difference,” Gracie whispered, and not too loudly, wishing she’d never said anything at all. To confirm her thought, Danielle drove a sharp fingernail into her ribs that made her jump and lose the animals. She recovered and refocused.

Then she sighed, sat back, and handed the binoculars to her father. “Those are coyotes, not wolves.”

“Oh, come on,” he said, taking the glasses back.

She waited. She could tell he wanted to turn them into wolves.

Finally, he said, “I’ll be damned. I thought they were wolves.” He was disappointed they were coyotes and seemed disappointed in Gracie for pointing it out.

Gracie said, “Dad, I read those books you sent us. You know, The Wildlife of Yellowstone, Yellowstone Flora and Fauna, Death in Yellowstone, The Geysers of Yellowstone. I read them. I studied them,” she said, hoping for a grunt of appreciation. “You know,” she said, “so Danny wouldn’t have to.”

That got a smile out of him.

“You suck,” Danielle mumbled. “Some of us have lives.”

“You read those books?” her dad asked, nodding.

“Some of them more than once,” Gracie confessed, and wished she hadn’t. She sounded so… without a life. But the fact was she was captivated with the books about a place on earth that could hold so many fascinating things that weren’t made or constructed by man. It had never occurred to her before she read those books that there was an amazing natural location not designed or driven by people. It made her think about how small she was. How small everybody was.

“Don’t drive off, Dad,” Danielle said.

“Do you want to take a look, then?” her dad asked eagerly, handing the binoculars over his shoulder so Danielle could grab them.

“Naw. I’ve got a good signal here,” she said, deadpan.

“It’s gonna get worse,” Gracie said. “In fact, we’ll lose it for good in a minute.”

Danielle looked up, horrified. “Shut up,” she said to Gracie. There was terror in her eyes. Then: “Dad, tell me that’s not true.”

When he realized Danielle didn’t want the glasses he lowered them to his seat as if he’d not held them out to her in the first place. Like he was embarrassed, Gracie thought. He said, “I thought I told you, Danny. There’s no cell service where we’re going. It’s the wilderness. It’s the most remote part of the whole country. At least the lower forty-eight states, to be exact. That’s the whole point.”

Gracie watched Danielle do a slow burn with a whiff of absolute panic.

“Are you telling me I can’t use my phone?” she said.

“Honey,” her dad said, turning around, making his face soft and sympathetic, “it’ll be great. You’ll forget you even have it. I know I told you all this about how remote it would be.”

Danielle’s tone was icy. “You didn’t say I couldn’t use my phone.”

“I think I did.”

Gracie nodded. “I think he did.”

Danielle turned on her. “I don’t know why you’d even care, Gracie. Nobody even knows your number.”

Gracie looked away, instant tears stinging in her eyes. She should be used to how quickly and ruthlessly Danielle could humiliate her and learn not to tear up. She hated when she let her sister get to her.

“This isn’t Yellowstone,” Danielle said to her dad, “It’s friggin’ hell.”

“Honey…,” her Dad said, turning in his seat so he could plead with her.

“My friends go to Europe, or Disneyland, or Hawaii, or Mexico for summer vacation,” Danielle said. “But no, my dad takes me to friggin’ hell.”

“Darling…,” her dad said.

“I should have stayed home,” Danielle said, twisting the knife. “I should have stayed with Mom. At least there was civilization and broadband. And my friends. And friggin’ cell service.”

Her dad turned back around in silence and engaged the transmission and the car eased forward into the lane.

Gracie said, “We can call it Hell-o-stone!”

“Shut the fuck up,” Danielle spat.

“Don’t say that,” Gracie said. “It’s against the law to say fuck in a national park.”

Danielle looked at her suspiciously. “It is?”

Her dad sighed, “Girls, please…”

It had been their dad’s idea, this trip to Yellowstone National Park. He’d come up with it the previous summer-they stayed with him summers-and he’d announced it suddenly when the sisters returned from an afternoon at the swimming pool at his condo village on the outskirts of St. Paul. Danielle, who’d just broken up with her then-local boyfriend at the pool an hour before and never wanted to see him-or Minnesota-again, said she was all over it.

Anything to get away from Alex and his stupid friends, she’d said, wiping her hands on her pool towel as if rubbing off his disgusting germs.

Gracie, who could never get used to the heat or humidity of the long green summer months compared to where they lived the rest of the year in dry, high-altitude Denver, was thrilled with the idea. Gracie loved animals, hiking, nature, and the idea of a great adventure. But most of all, she wanted to make her dad happy.

It had been obvious for the ten years since the divorce that her dad wasn’t really comfortable with them, maybe because they were girls. He’d never outright said he wanted boys instead, but it was clear that at least he’d know what to do with them: take them to baseball games or something. He really wasn’t an outdoorsman of any kind even though he’d grown up in Colorado, but Gracie guessed he’d take quicker to learning to hike, fish, or hunt for the sake of his sons than he did ferrying his daughters to movies, the Mall of America, restaurants, or waiting for them to return from the pool. He was dutiful, but there was always something sad about him, she thought. Like he liked the idea of having his daughters for the summer more than he actually liked having them there taking over the bathroom or hanging their wet bathing suits from the shower rod to dry.

But this trip really did seem to excite him in a way she’d never seen before. Once he cleared it with their mother-who thought he, and they, were crazy as ticks but acquiesced in the end-he could talk of nothing else for the rest of the year. His eyes sparkled, and his movements seemed more rapid. He fired off e-mails and links about Yellowstone and horses and camping and wildlife. For Christmas he sent them both sleeping bags, flashlights, headlamps, travel fishing rods and reels, new digital cameras, rain ponchos, and National Geographic maps of the park.

Gracie read everything he sent, and obsessed over the “What to Bring” list forwarded from the outfitter. Danielle rolled her eyes and said, “What-does he think we’re his boys, now?”

Gracie suspected there was an ulterior motive to his enthusiasm, but she didn’t know yet what it was. She suspected through comments her mother had made over the years that her dad wasn’t very happy growing up, that his intensity (he was a software engineer who traveled a lot all over the country and the world) prevented him from ever being loose or carefree. He thought in terms of circuit boards and digital switches, and when the level of drama was high-which it often was with Danielle and sometimes Gracie-that he was “better at hardware than software,” as if that explained everything. She thought maybe he was hoping he could go on this wilderness cowboy pack trip and… be a boy again. She wasn’t sure that was something she really wanted to see.

The trip the day before had begun on a jarring note, Gracie thought. It was taking her a while to process what had happened and why it bothered her, other than her natural and annoying propensity to simply worry too much about everything.

They’d kissed their mother good-bye at Denver International Airport in the morning and boarded the United/Frontier flight to Bozeman. Although they’d planned to carry on their luggage-which was ridiculously slight given the weight restrictions Jed McCarthy imposed-but because of all the metal and equipment in their duffel bags, they’d had to check the bags through. Gracie thought her mom looked forlorn and vulnerable, as if she wondered if she’d ever see her daughters again. That wasn’t a good way to start the trip.

Their arrival was slightly delayed-the airplane had to circle Bozeman while early summer thundershowers lashed the airport. Gracie had the window seat and looked out at the mountains in all directions and the black thunderheads on the northern horizon.

“Which way is Yellowstone?” she’d asked her sister.

“Like I would know?” Danielle said in a way that was both incredulous and offended.

“That’s right,” Gracie had said, “how dare I assume you know anything.”

Which was met with a hard twist on her ear.

She’d looked out expectantly for their dad in the luggage area because he was scheduled to arrive an hour before from Minneapolis, but he wasn’t there.

“His plane must be late,” Danielle told her. “I’ll check in a minute.”

When their bags arrived and the rest of the passengers cleared out, Gracie waited near the outside doors. She knew there was a problem by Danielle’s worried face as she came back from the Northwest counter.

“The plane arrived on time but he wasn’t on it, they said.”

Gracie fought panic. She looked up at the mounted animal heads and stuffed trout on the walls and out at the cold blue mountains to the south. She thought of how miserable it would be to be stuck in Bozeman, Montana, with her sister until they could figure out a way to get back home. And she was worried about what might have happened to their dad. Was he sick? Did he get in a car crash on the way to the airport? She flipped open her phone and powered it up, hoping there would be a message.

“I’m calling Mom,” Danielle said, having already opened her cell phone.

That’s when their dad bounded into the airport. Not from the area where the planes landed, but from outside on the street.

“Girls!” he shouted. His grin and his open arms made Gracie’s black dread melt away as if he had touched a flame to a spider’s web. He seemed almost too exuberant, she thought. As if he was happy but with a bit of desperation thrown in.

“Come on, the car’s out front,” he’d said. “Let me help you with your stuff.”

Danielle told him they were starting to worry, and what the people at the airline counter had said.

He waved it off, saying, “That’s ridiculous. Obviously, I was on the plane. I’m here, aren’t I?”

They turned onto a dirt road by a brown National Park Service sign indicating the campsite and trailhead. Her father once again closed his window to prevent the roll of dust from filling the car. Gracie turned off her phone and put it in a side pocket of the door and made a mental note not to forget it when they returned. She watched as Danielle seethed-no signal at all-and finally snapped her phone shut.

“Great,” her sister said, “I’m completely alone in the world.”

“Except for your sister and your father,” her dad said with caution.

“Alone in Hell-o-stone,” Gracie mocked gently, “Hell-o-stone alone…”

Danielle mouthed Shut the fuck up, Gracie.

“That’s your second offense,” Gracie said, deadpan. “We may need to turn you in to the rangers.”

“We’re here,” her dad said with an epic flourish.

Gracie once again bounded forward and hung her arms over the front seat. They’d rounded a corner and could now see that at the end of the road was a very long horse trailer in a parking lot. People stood around the trailer in the sun; a couple were already on horseback. Gracie counted ten or eleven milling about. When she saw the horses her heart seemed to swell to twice its size.

“We’re really going to do this, aren’t we?” she said, reaching up and putting her hand on her dad’s shoulder. He reached across his body and put his hand on hers.

“It’ll be the greatest adventure of our lives,” he said.

“I’m taking my phone,” Danielle said as if talking to herself. “Maybe we’ll find a place with a signal somewhere.” Then: “Oh my God. Look at all the people! We’re going to be stuck for a week with them?”

9

Outfitter Jed McCarthy pulled back and tightened the cinch on a mare named Strawberry-she was a strawberry roan-and squinted over the top of a saddle at the car that had just rounded the corner on the side of the hill. It was a blue American-made four-door sedan. Nobody normal drove those, he thought, meaning it must be a rental and therefore the last of his clients to arrive.

“That better be the Sullivans,” he said under his breath to Dakota Hill, his wrangler. She was in the process of saddling a stout sorrel a few feet away.

“Is that the party of three?” she asked. “The father and two teenage daughters?”

“Yup.”

Dakota blew a strand of hair out of her face. “You know what I think about teenage girls on these trips.”

“I know.”

“I may have to kill one someday. Push her off a cliff. Damn prima donnas, anyhow.”

“I know.”

“Or feed her to some bears.”

“Keep your voice down,” McCarthy said. “Their money’s as good as anyone’s. And we’ve got a full boat of paying customers for this one. This keeps up, I can get that new truck. Life is good.”

“For you,” she said, tight-lipped. “Me, I get the same damned wages no matter what.”

“At least you did before you started getting under my skin,” he said, smiling his smile that he knew could be interpreted as cruel. “Besides, you got perks. You get to sleep with the boss.” He waggled his eyebrows when he said it.

“Some perk,” she grumbled.

“I ain’t heard any complaints.”

“You ain’t listening.”

Almost twenty-five, she’d grown up on ranches in Montana and drove her father’s pickup at eight years old and was breaking horses by the time she was twelve. She had a round open face, thick lips that curved quickly into an unabashed and purely authentic smile, naturally blushed cheeks, and dancing brown eyes. She’d attended a couple of years at MSU, but quit to barrel race and never went back. He’d met her when she delivered some horses to him two summers before. Her barrel horse had come up seriously lame just that day at the local rodeo. The horse would never run again and never earn any more money. She needed a job. He needed a wrangler.

He stepped closer to Strawberry so none of his clients could see him draw a laminated three-by-five index card out of his breast pocket. On it were the names of each of his customers for the trip as well as vital information they’d sent him regarding weight (to match them with a horse), age, riding experience, food allergies, dietary needs, and what they most wanted out of the trip, from fly-fishing opportunities to horseback riding to wildlife viewing to “being one with nature.” He made it a point of pride to know the names of everyone on his excursions from the initial introduction, and to constantly surprise his clients with probing questions about their personal needs and to ask them about their lives based on a short questionnaire he’d required them all to fill out and send along with their booking form. People liked that kind of personal attention, he’d found, and he was rewarded for it at the end of the week by the size of the tip. Sometimes they’d rebook a trip because of it. And despite Dakota’s grumbling, he knew it was vital to hook the teenage girls early. Usually, it was to match them up with a horse they’d fall in love with. He’d feed the girl some kind of backstory on the horse they were riding-sometimes it was even true-about how the animal was particular and only responded to people who were gentle and special. Then, a few miles up the trail, he’d remark how well-behaved the horse was and compliment the teenage rider for her prowess. Generally, that would do it: the girl would fall in love and never even consider how many other girls before her-and after-would have the same passionate relationship with the same horse.

He’d make sure to send a Christmas card to the girl from the horse, telling her how much her horse missed her and that she was the animal’s favorite human. Often, it resulted in a customer for life, because he’d found today’s parents did not deny their children anything. At two thousand dollars a client, it was important to know that.

This particular trip was full. There’d been no cancelations and everybody showed up at the appointed place at the agreed-upon time. With the arrival of the Sullivans, he had everybody.

Before gathering them together for an orientation, he walked along the length of his long horse trailer and looked at a reflection of himself in the passenger window of his pickup. He liked what he saw.

Jed McCarthy was a short, solid fireplug of a man with a gunfighter mustache, trimmed short beard, and blue eyes so pale they were practically opaque. He was a year shy of forty and he’d been running horse pack trips into the Yellowstone wilderness for eight years, one of only two licensed outfitters deemed worthy and compliant by the authorities at the National Park Service. He wore snug Wranglers and lace-up outfitter boots with heels for riding, a sterling silver rancher set for a buckle, and a leather vest with plenty of pockets to hold all the tools and small gear he needed. Around his neck was a red silk kerchief folded over and knotted in the cowboy style. His hair was thinning on top so he rarely took off his droopy brown Resistol hat. He knew from experience his clients spent a lot of time studying him. The women did it because he was interesting and exotic and a damned good-looking cowboy who was also sensitive, manly, humble, and mysterious. They’d likely read on his Web site he was a poet and painter as well as an experienced horseman and man of nature: a wilderness Renaissance man! The men studied him not only as a leader but as a rival. Some of them sucked up to him, trying to get his approval. Others shut up and conceded Jed was the boss because he was a man’s man and he was in charge of the outfit.

And he was in charge. It didn’t matter if his clients were CEOs or actors or millionaire lawyers or doctors or whatever. Once they mounted up and fell in behind his black gelding and his string of three pack mules (Dakota followed up on her horse with a string as well) he was the trail boss. He was the boss of everything. And with the exception of Dakota, he was the only one on the trip who knew where they were going, what to expect, what to watch out for, where they’d camp, what they’d eat, where they’d sleep and relieve themselves. This was his company, his stock, his equipment, his plan, and his permit.

Behind him in the reflection, he saw Dakota slump by. He wished her posture was better as well as her attitude. But she was a hell of a hand, and she was unabashed and enthusiastic in a way that only country girls could be when they zipped their sleeping bags together. Country girls who’d grown up around life and death and sex and birth on the farm or ranch had few inhibitions, he’d found. Plus, she was a quick learner and eager to please. He liked horses and women with that quality. What he didn’t like was the way she kept her own counsel at times and the way she vanished for a week here and a week there without telling him where she was going or when she’d be back. He’d have fired her long ago if he could have found a replacement. But it wasn’t easy to locate a nice-looking girl twenty years his junior who was not only an experienced wrangler with horses and mules but good in the sack as well. But he never told her that. Sometimes, he hinted there was a long line of eager replacements out there ready to step in if she left. As long as she believed that, he thought, he’d have the advantage.

He pocketed the index card and closed his eyes and repeated their names over and over like a mantra before he turned around, put on his kind but competent expression, and said to the clients milling around near their piles of clothing and gear, “Let’s gather here for a few minutes, folks, so we can get to know each other.”

He took a few steps into the clearing and stopped. He stuck his thumbs into his jeans pockets and rocked back a little on his boot heels. He’d not go to them. He’d make them come to him. This was the all-important first impression, perhaps the single most important half hour of the entire week. He’d learned it could sometimes take days to undo a bad first meeting if he came across as soft, confusing, or incoherent. It was imperative everyone understood the rules, the procedures, and who was who. It started with them all coming to him.

And dutifully, in singles and loose groups, they did. Dakota took her place to his right about ten feet away. She led a saddled horse over to use for demonstration purposes.

He waited for the Sullivans to join them. The father looked pale and nervous and had a weak chin and darting eyes. Obviously a desk jockey of some sort, Jed thought. Those types tended to remind him of mice, like this guy did. Whatever Sullivan did for a living-he’d need to check his records but he knew “automation” and “digital” were in the title and he was vice president of development of something-it paid well. Treating his daughters to a trip like this, plus the transportation, was pricey.

The taller girl was striking, Jed thought. Jet-black hair, bangs, blue eyes, nice mouth and figure. Plus, she was looking right at him. That showed attitude and confidence. When he looked back she didn’t drop her eyes. He thought: Arrogant, too. Then: Dakota’s going to love this one.

The younger girl was skinny, flat chested, freckle faced, and looked serious and bookish. Freckles and braces. His eyes slid right over her and his brain said, Nothing to see here folks, move along.

But he’d have to get to know that tall one…

“Folks, I’m Jed McCarthy and this is Dakota Hill. We’re your guides, and we’re about to embark on the longest, most scenic, and most remote horse packing expedition into the Yellowstone backcountry wilderness available. It’s the best trip we do all summer and it’s the one we enjoy the most. This is the first and only time we’ll do this trip this season, and because the snows last winter were so heavy and have just recently melted away, we’re likely to be the only people going where we’re going. For you, all I can say is I envy you for what you’re going to see and experience for the first time. It truly is the trip of a lifetime into the farthest reaches of America’s first and best national park.

“I know you all got the materials I sent you and read up on our itinerary and the other info on the Web site, but in a nutshell, we’re going to match you up with a horse that will be your horse for the next six days and ninety miles,” he said, letting that sink in amidst titters.

Jed continued, “We’ll be leaving from here within the hour, so I’d urge you to make sure you’ve got all your gear out and piled up so we can load it on the mules. This is a progressive trip, meaning we’ll be at a new camp every night. Camp One is fifteen miles away along the shore of Yellowstone Lake. Tomorrow, we go into the Thorofare along the river and we follow it upstream to Camp Two. Camp Three is a hell of a climb from the river valley toward the top of the Continental Divide and Two Ocean Pass. We’ll ride a few thousand feet up into the mountains, and some of you may experience shortness of breath or maybe a touch of altitude sickness. The best way to ward that off is to keep hydrated. Keep drinking water, folks-it’s magic. If you’re doing it right, you’ll drink two or three times the water you usually drink. That’s what we want.

“It’s called Two Ocean Pass because the water on the east side of the mountains begins its flow to the Atlantic, and on the west side it’s headed for the Pacific. It’s high mountain country, and the most remote location in the lower forty-eight in terms of its distance from any road or structure. It is true primitive wilderness, but that’s what you signed up for, isn’t it?

“Keep this in mind, folks: only two percent of Yellowstone’s 3,468 square miles is developed in any way. It’s the largest remaining nearly intact ecosystem in the Earth’s northern temperate zone. What you see around you right now-a road, cars, a parking lot-are the last items of modern civilization you’ll see for the next week.”

He scanned his clients as he spoke, already putting them into categories. Rarely anymore did anyone truly surprise him. Everyone was a type, and he’d been with all types on his trips. As he looked his clients over he fitted them into slots.

Jed said, “We’ve all heard the term ‘beyond civilization’ without really thinking much about it because for most of you, being out of range of cell-phone towers or Wi-Fi isn’t something you’ve thought real hard about. But that’s where we’re going: the most remote wilderness left in our country. We like to call it Back of Beyond.”

As always, the phrase produced a nice murmur of trepidation.

He’d briefly talked to the lone married couple on the trip, Tristan and Donna Glode. Although in their sixties, they were fit and vigorous. He was a CEO of a manufacturing company in St. Louis and he spoke as if used to being listened to. Tristan seemed clear-eyed if hard-assed-even with that unfortunate name-Jed thought. A guy he could depend on if he didn’t cross him or fill him full of bullshit-which he wouldn’t. His wife, Donna, was arch and cold. She was one of those fine-boned skeleton women who no doubt did Pilates and had her plastic surgeon’s number on her speed dial. She was a horsewoman of a type-the type who stabled her expensive horses and rarely rode them but enjoyed long lunches with the girls and society functions. Jed guessed the two didn’t get along all that well with each other anymore. They wouldn’t be the first longtime married couple to come on one of his trips with the purpose-either stated or most likely implied-of trying to rekindle a failing or already dead marriage. But when he looked at them, the way they stood apart from each other, he guessed the rekindling would turn out to be unsuccessful. He just hoped neither of them drew any of his other clients into the dispute.

As individuals, these types always wanted to gain sympathetic ears, and gather allies to be on their side. The women were worse than the men in that regard. Already, Jed had noted Donna shooting brief sidelong glances toward the only single woman on the trip, Rachel Mina. She’d already no doubt targeted her as her first and most likely coconspirator.

Jed said to everyone, “We have a method to our madness on the trail, and we’d appreciate your cooperation. First, nobody brought any bear spray, did they?”

No one said yes.

“Good. I know the Park Service advises everyone to have bear spray because we will absolutely see bears, both black and grizzly. But bear spray does the same thing to horses as it does to bears. If there was an accidental discharge while we were riding along, it could set off a panic and a stampede. So I always ask my clients not to bring bear spray. Of course, I won’t even ask about firearms because it’s illegal to have a gun in a national park. Everybody knows that, right?”

There was general assent.

“Nobody has a gun with them, right?”

Vigorous “Oh, no’s” and head shakes all around, except for one man. The single, Wilson. Jed noted it and tucked the impression into his mental “To Do” basket.

He continued, “You may have heard Congress passed a law that it was now legal for individuals to carry firearms in national parks, but that’s only half the story. It means if you have a valid concealed-carry permit in the state where the park is located-Wyoming, in our case-you can legally have a gun. It doesn’t mean anyone can just show up packing iron. And the releases you signed with us clearly state no firearms. Everybody clear on that point?”

General assent. Except for Wilson, who didn’t respond either way.

To the left of the Glodes were Walt Franck and his stepson Justin from Denver. Walt had salt-and-pepper hair, he was short, and he looked soft. He had a kindly unimpressive face and a bulbous nose spiderwebbed with veins, suggesting he was a drinker. He wore a fishing shirt and zip-off pants, and there was a rod tube poking out of his pile of gear. Justin was in his late teens. He was tall, chiseled, and athletic looking. He had long unkempt hair and smoldering dark eyes. As Jed spoke, Justin’s eyes were on the dark-haired Sullivan girl who’d just arrived. Jed thought, This will be interesting.

As he did with all of his clients, Jed tried to guess the motivation for Walt and Justin to come on the trip. By their age disparity, he guessed Walt was much older than Justin’s mother. That fact alone suggested Walt was bringing the stepson along to forge a bond that had been missing between them. Or was it Justin’s idea? While Justin looked fit and able, Jed thought, the kid didn’t look like an outdoorsman. He was missing all the telltale high-tech outdoor clothing and attitude. No, Jed decided, this was Walt’s deal. Take the boy on an adventure, show him how to camp and fish. Show the boy Walt had some skills besides his interest in his mother, after all. Plus, it showed the boy that Walt had serious money that he was willing to spend on him.

“I see we have some fishermen with us but according to the registration forms, we also have some wildlife enthusiasts,” he said, nodding toward Tristan Glode and the younger Sullivan girl (he couldn’t remember her name), “And I can tell you right now you won’t be disappointed. I’d suggest you take the strap of your camera and loop it through a button hole and put the camera in a shirt pocket so you can get to it real quick. You don’t want to drop your camera or lose it along the trail, that’s for sure. The Yellowstone Thorofare is home to all of the major species in the park. We’ll see bison, wolves, grizzlies, mountain sheep, mule deer, antelope, black bear, and moose. We’ll see smaller species along the way as well-coyotes, beavers, marmots, and dozens of species of birds including bald eagles. We’ll see critters in their natural habitat doing things critters do-like kill and eat each other. We won’t interfere with them and they won’t interfere with us. In all my years of guiding these trips and all the bears we’ve seen, I’ve only lost a couple of clients and it was their own fault because they ran slow.”

That always got a decent nervous laugh. He glanced over to see Dakota roll her eyes. She’d heard him say that so many times.

“Just remember,” he said, grinning to show he was kidding, “you don’t have to outrun the bear. Bears are fast. You just have to outrun the guy or gal next to you.

“I’m joshing, of course,” he said. “Nobody yet has been killed and eaten by a bear.” He paused dramatically. “Of course, attacks by wolf packs is another matter.”

He soaked in the dark laughter, and clinically noted the exchanges of looks between the father and daughters, between Walt and Justin, between the group of three men, and the absence of sharing between Tristan and Jennifer Glode. Yup, he thought, he had that one figured out.

The group of three men in their thirties were the easiest to peg, Jed thought. He knew what they were about when they opened the doors of their rental car and empty beer cans fell out. They were still squinting from high-altitude hangovers. James Knox, Tony D’Amato, and Drey Russell were three gregarious buddies who worked at different firms on Wall Street who went on an annual male-bonding adventure. They were the cut-ups, the goofballs. Knox, a light-haired man with a long thin nose and brusque East Coast go-get-’em manner, was the organizer. He was maybe a few years older than the other two.

Of all the clients, Jed had been most concerned about the three Wall Streeters. Three men like that could take over a trip and pose a challenge to him if they had the wrong attitude or expectations. But after seeing them emerge from the car and watching them josh with each other and laugh, he was relieved. They were there for the adventure.

Drey Russell-short for André, according to his booking form-was a light-skinned black man with dark kind eyes and a quick smile. Jed didn’t get many people of color on his trips, and welcomed Drey so he could get some photos of him in the group to use on his Web site. The National Park Service loved that diversity crap, he knew.

Tony D’Amato looked as dark and Italian as his name, and had a heavy New Jersey accent. He played the part of the perpetually flummoxed big-city boy stuck out in the country, the man who “don’t know nothin’ about horses except the ones on the carousel,” who was the butt of Knox’s and Drey’s jibes. These three would be no trouble, Jed thought. They were into themselves and their group, and they were there to fill up a sackful of memories to laugh about later when they met after work at the bar. So for them, the tougher, the crazier, the more primitive the trip the better because it would make for better tales to tell. A little high maintenance, maybe, Jed thought, even though they didn’t intend to be. Folks raised entirely in cities didn’t have perspective when it came to so many outdoor adventures. But they’d try to get along. No doubt they were all used to snappy service at resorts and lodges and probably not the grind of the trail, despite what they might think. He remembered seeing the previous male-bonding trips listed on their applications, including Mexico, Europe, and Scandinavia. Of course, that was before the economic meltdown, back when these guys pulled down seven figures or close to that. Now, as Knox had made it clear on his initial call, the circumstances were such that the group agreed to keep doing their annual adventure together, even if “they had to slum it for a couple of years.” Although Jed took silent offense to that, he also decided upon seeing them that they seemed almost normal. Jed would just play to Knox and Drey to get them on board. They’d keep Tony D’Amato in line. These three could be Jed’s allies, if he played it right. It was always good to establish allies early on.

“You see we have mules as well as horses,” Jed said, gesturing behind him to where the animals stood tied abreast along the length of the horse trailer. “The mules are our pack animals.”

Jed paused and smiled slyly. “For our friends from New York City, the mules are the goofy-looking ones with long ears who are fast asleep right now.”

That got a bit of a laugh and the Wall Streeters enjoyed being highlighted. Yup, Jed thought, they’d be all right.

Said Jed, “I’ll lead a string of three and Dakota here will follow up the rest of you with a string of three as well. In those canvas boxes on the sides of the mules will be all our equipment-tents, food, first-aid kits, cookstove and kitchen setup, plates and silverware, feedbags, everything we’ll need. That’s why I asked all of you to keep your personal gear down to no more than twenty pounds each. We just don’t have the space or animals to take any more. I know it’s tough to get all your possessions down to twenty pounds, but for the sake of the animals and the weight on them, that’s what we have to do. You’ll learn to live with and maybe even enjoy not having too many choices of what to wear each day.

“Even though I sent you a checklist, let me just make sure you all have what you need, starting with a good sleeping bag…”

As he went through the list: sleeping bag, sleeping pad, rain gear, on and on, he picked out the two remaining clients on the trip, the two singles. Singles were often a pain in the butt to Jed, since they tended to try to pal around with him or Dakota if they didn’t fit in with any of the other clients, which was often the case. Singles could sometimes be broody and standoffish, and create dissension. Jed was always relieved when other clients took in the strays so he wouldn’t have to.

The singles were a man and a woman. They stood as far away from each other as possible while still being within the group of clients, meaning they had no immediate intention of forming an alliance. The man was named K. W. Wilson. Ken. He was dark and pinched and had provided the least amount of personal information on his registration form of anyone. The only thing Jed knew about him was Ken was from Utah, wanted to fish, and that he couldn’t eat cheese. Jed would try to figure the guy out at Camp One so he’d know how to handle him and integrate him into the larger group. If K.W. wouldn’t talk, Jed would ask Dakota to sidle up to him. Men liked to talk to Dakota, even if she didn’t particularly like talking with them.

Wilson had his camera out and was taking digital photos of everybody and everything. What was odd about it was the man never asked anyone to smile or even permission to click away.

The other single was a woman, Rachel Mina. Aside from the dark-haired Sullivan girl, Mina was the best-looking woman on the trip. She had high cheekbones, white skin, and long auburn hair tied back into a ponytail. She filled out her jeans nicely, Jed thought. And he knew her type the minute the booking form had come through his fax machine: midforties, well-to-do, and recently divorced. The last of the children out of the home, probably, and finally able to do the things she’d never been able to do before, ready for anything, game for anything. Jed could tell Dakota had picked up the same impression right off by the way she glared at her.

It was interesting, Jed thought, that the booking forms for Ted Sullivan and Rachel Mina arrived within days of each other back in November the year before. He assumed they might be together. But Sullivan and Mina hadn’t greeted each other or even shared a glance that he’d seen. He chalked the close arrival of the forms to coincidence. Which meant she may be in play after all.

“Any questions?” Jed asked.

Tony D’Amato raised his hand. As he did, Drey and Knox coughed into their hands.

“What do we do if we can’t get along with our horse? You know, like we’ve never even friggin’ ridden one before?”

Jed said, “Walk.” Deadpan. Then he grinned. “You shouldn’t have to worry. We’ll match you up with the easiest and gentlest horse we’ve got. The horse knows to follow the horse in front of it. All you’ll have to do is keep balanced. The less steering you do the better. These horses know where we’re going and who’s in charge. They’ll fall right into line. We don’t allow any cowboy stuff, folks. You’re all riding trail horses along a trail. No breaking off from the line, no riding fast. We’re into safety and not rodeos. So just sit back and relax. And once we get going, Dakota and I will help you out and give you some tips.”

“Maybe you can ride a mule,” Drey said to Tony, and both he and Knox broke out laughing.

“I’ve got a question,” said Tristan Glode. His voice was stentorian and without humor.

“Yes, sir?” Jed said. He knew instantly Glode was the kind of man who would expect and appreciate deference and would reward it with a big tip.

“I’ve been following the weather and the conditions in Yellowstone for the past six months since we signed up for this adventure,” he said. Jed noted the Wall Streeters looking at each other and rolling their eyes at his out-front arrogance but looked away before Glode saw him. “It’s been unseasonably cold and wet. More rainfall than usual by a large degree. My question is if we’ll need to deviate from your established routing because of the high water.”

Jed answered quickly, so as not to concern the rest of his clients. “You’re absolutely right about the rain, sir,” he said. “We’ve had a hell of a wet spring and early summer. In fact, I had to cancel my first two trips because of it. I didn’t want to risk taking folks or these horses through swelled-up creeks and rivers. But the rains finally let up, as you can see. The water levels are going down, and the Park Service gave me the okay. So I don’t think there’s anything you need to worry about. We can be a little flexible if we need to. If the camp we plan to stay at is washed out, there are plenty of others to choose from. This is a big damned place.”

As he said the last part, Jed felt Dakota’s probing eyes on the side of his head. He ignored her.

Glode stood perfectly still, absorbing the answer. For a moment, Jed anticipated Glode would say something disastrous, like, “Maybe we should come back another year.”

Instead, Glode said, “As long as we get the experience we’re paying for, I’m okay with that. I don’t want some cheap route because of conditions. I want to take the trip into the back of beyond I paid for.”

“That you’ll get, sir,” Jed said, grinning with relief. “But keep in mind what I said about flexibility.”

“What do you think?” Jed whispered to Dakota when they were back at the trailer saddling up the last of the horses.

“Not a bad group overall. Maybe a couple of minor problems.”

“Which ones?”

“The older teenage girl looks like trouble but nothing we can’t handle,” she said, keeping her voice down. “The older couple look like they’re spoiling for a knock-down-drag-out with each other any minute. The three Wall Streeters seem okay, but I’d bet they’ve got more than twenty pounds of gear each on them and most of that is liquor.”

Jed nodded. She was getting good at this.

“I like the younger of the two sisters.”

“I didn’t even notice her.”

“You wouldn’t,” Dakota said. Then: “What was that about using other campsites? You know what the Park Service says about that. Why’d you say we might change up the route?”

He shrugged. “You never know. Conditions might dictate a change.”

“I thought it was kind of a strange thing to say,” she said, trying without success to get him to look back at her.

He changed the subject. “What about the single man? Wilson?”

She looked over. “He’s the one who gives me a bad vibe.”

He nodded, agreeing. “Maybe you can get him to talk to you a little. Find out what his deal is.”

“I knew you were going to ask me to do that.”

“He’s likely to talk to you before me,” Jed said.

Jed finished up on the saddle and leaned into her. He whispered, “If the situation presents itself I may take a look in his duffel to make sure he don’t have no gun.”

Dakota arched her eyebrows. “And if he does?”

“I’ll figure out a way to make it a nonissue.”

He could tell his turn of phrase puzzled her but he didn’t say more. He liked to leave her hanging, make himself a little mysterious. That was good for a relationship, he thought. Plus, he didn’t want her thinking this was their last trip together.

Which it was. Because, Jed thought but didn’t say, it was likely to be his last trip back of beyond. And if everything fell into place the way he’d planned it over the long and dark winter, he’d be set for life. Smart-ass girl wranglers like Dakota Hill-and needy clients like the ones who milled around before him-would be things in his past.

Hell, he thought, if things worked out like he planned them, he’d be the one getting catered to.

10

Gracie got Strawberry, a light red roan mare with dapples of white on her sides and haunches that had the effect of making her look like a pink horse. After sitting on Strawberry’s back for fifteen minutes as the long train of riders wound up out of the parking lot into the trees on the rocky trail, Gracie knew one thing for sure: she was in love.

Already she liked the sounds and rhythm of the ride; the heavy footfalls of the animals, their snorts, the rocking motion, even the smell of them. And she was thrilled with that big-eyed look Strawberry gave her when the old mare turned her head back and seemed to assess Gracie with a practiced eye, apparently satisfied with what she saw.

“I like you, too,” Gracie whispered, leaning forward in her saddle to pat Strawberry on the neck. “I like you, too. We’re a good team, I think.”

“What-are you talking to your horse?” Danielle said over her shoulder as she rode ahead. “Don’t be kissing him, now.”

“It’s a her,” Gracie said. “And you should talk to your horse. That’s one way to get her to like you.”

“What’s mine?” Danielle said. “I forgot. I know the name is Peanut.”

Said Gracie, “You’re riding a gelding.” She’d overheard Jed the outfitter and Dakota Hill brief her sister on Peanut and his particular tendencies, the worst of which was to take every opportunity available to grab a bite of grass from the side of the trail. “You know what a gelding is, don’t you?”

“Of course,” Danielle said. “He’s a unit.”

“A eunuch,” Gracie corrected.

“Right,” Danielle said, “a horse with no balls. A Peanut with a limp penis. Just great.”

“You wouldn’t want a stallion,” Gracie said. “They have only one thing on their minds.”

“I’m used to boys like that.”

“I know you are.”

“Shut up,” Danielle said. “Just because you took some lessons you act like you’re an expert.”

“I’m not,” Gracie said. “But I wish you would have gone to those lessons with me like I asked you. I learned a lot, and you would have, too. If nothing else, you could have listened to Jed and Dakota tell you about him. I don’t know how you get by never listening to anyone.”

“Yet somehow I do,” Danielle said, looking over her shoulder, smiling seductively, and batting her eyelashes.

Gracie rolled her eyes.

From behind her, Gracie heard Dakota Hill say, “S’cuse me while I puke.”

Gracie giggled and looked around. Dakota was leading her three mules and mumbling to herself, and acted embarrassed that Gracie had heard her. Gracie winked. Dakota grinned and winked back, obviously relieved they had something in common.

Gracie wondered what the deal was with Jed and Dakota, if they were an item. She’d seen how they talked with each other at the horse trailer.

Yes, she decided. They were a couple, even if Jed was too old for her. Maybe, Gracie thought, there weren’t many choices of men in Montana.

The order of the riders, horses, and mules was established in the parking lot by Jed. Once everyone was mounted, he’d explained that the reason for the order of riders was not based on merit or preference, but by how the horses behaved with each other.

“If you want to change the order,” he said, “we can maybe work it out at some point. We may find we want to change things up as well to keep the peace. But right now, just memorize the look of the rider’s butt and the horse’s butt ahead of you and follow those butts. Horses have an established pecking order. They also have friends and enemies. We know these horses better than we know you folks at this point, so trust us on this. Safety first, folks. If you change up the order you increase the chance of a wreck.”

Gracie rode next to last on Strawberry. When Jed handed her the reins of the pink horse, he told Gracie the animal was a sweetheart and “Don’t have an ounce of mean in her anymore if she ever did.” Strawberry was older than Gracie, he said, and this may be her last trip before she was retired to be a brood mare. All Strawberry required, Jed said, was kindness and she’d pay Gracie back with loyalty and predictability. “You look like a nice girl,” Jed had said.

“Most of the time,” Gracie answered.

“You’ve ridden a little?”

“Quite a bit, actually,” she said.

He gave her a paternalistic smile. “We’ll see,” he said.

11

Cody Hoyt said, “So, do you have a headlight that will work?”

It was ten thirty in the morning and the mechanic leaned against a rolling, red-metal standing tool chest and drank a cup of coffee. Above his head was a Snap-On Tools calendar featuring a blonde winking while holding a wrench. The little garage was dark and close and smelled of oil and gasoline. Dust motes floated through the shafts of light from the cloudy windows. The mechanic wore gray coveralls and a Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation cap. He was short and wiry with deep-set eyes and short-cropped salt-and-pepper hair. He’d shaved but had missed a triangle of whiskers above his Adam’s apple. Cody had waited for him outside the shop for an hour while the mechanic had leisurely morning coffee with other locals at the diner next door.

“I might have one,” the mechanic said, “depending on your attitude.”

Cody nearly launched himself across the floor at the guy, but managed to take a deep breath and look away. Orange spangles danced around the edges of his vision. He wanted to flash his badge or show his gun. He wanted to put the mechanic in a sleeper hold and threaten his eyes with pepper spray-anything to get the guy moving. He hated being a civilian. And he hated the fact that he had to operate below the radar and on his own. If he’d told the trooper the night before where he was going and why, the patrolman would have been duty bound to call it in and check the story. Cody couldn’t afford to have the sheriff know he was gone, and Townsend was close enough to Helena that Bodean might send someone to get him and bring him back. So, gritting his teeth against his nature, he’d followed the trooper back to town and nodded meekly when ordered to “Park it.”

If he leaned on the mechanic the trooper would come back and he might never get out of Townsend, Montana, population 1,898.

“Look,” Cody said, “just please put your other jobs aside long enough to wire in a new headlight.”

The mechanic eyed Cody with a squint, sizing him up. Waiting for more groveling, Cody imagined.

“I’ve been here all night,” Cody said. “The trooper said you’re the only mechanic in town right now. I’m really desperate to get on the road and he won’t let me go until I’ve got a headlight that works.”

Finally, the mechanic said, “I doubt I can match the headlight. I might have to order one out of Helena or White Sulpher Springs-”

Cody broke in, “It doesn’t have to look pretty. It doesn’t even have to fit. It just has to light up.”

The morning was cool and sunny and there were no pedestrians on the street. The Commercial Bar across the road was open, as it always was. Cody watched as a ranch truck parked at the curb and a beat-up old cowboy got out and went in for his breakfast beer. He wore irrigation boots and a sweat-stained straw hat. Jesus, he thought, a breakfast beer.

As he walked he thought of Justin, and his stomach turned sour. Therefore, he had to keep it going. He had to find his son and keep that going. He owed the world the favor.

He pulled out his cell and speed-dialed Larry’s extension.

“Olson.”

“Larry, it’s me.”

There was a beat before Larry cleared his throat and said, “Excuse me, what did you say your name was?”

“Come on, Larry.”

“And you’re with what company again?”

“Ah,” Cody said, “Bodean’s in the room. Got it.”

“Yes,” Larry said, clipped.

“Can’t talk?”

“No. How did you get this number?”

“I’ll call back on your cell, then.”

Larry said, “I don’t purchase toner or anything else for the office, lady. I’m a detective for the sheriff’s department, for crying out loud. I’ve got important work to do.” And slammed his phone down.

Cody called back three minutes later to find out Larry’s cell phone had been turned off.

Cody closed his phone, puzzled. Larry never turned off his phone. So either Bodean was still in the room or something else was going on. What?

Cody’s phone went off. He looked at the display. It was an unknown number but had the Montana 406 area code.

“Yes,” Cody said.

“Me,” Larry said. By the background traffic noises from Larry’s cell, Cody guessed his partner had taken a walk outside.

“Don’t call me on my cell or the office number again,” Larry said. “They don’t know you’re gone. There can’t be a record of calls between us on either phone. And if they ask me if I’ve heard from you, I’ll tell them the truth. I can’t lie for you, Cody.”

“I understand. So what is this phone you’re using?”

“You know, it’s one I borrowed,” Larry stammered.

“You’re learning.” Cody smiled to himself. He remembered the afternoon when he showed Larry how many phones there were in the evidence room, each tagged for specific cases. Some still had a battery charge left. He’d told Larry how, down in Denver, he’d used confiscated phones to make calls that couldn’t be traced back to him and sometimes, to aggravate a criminal, he’d call random numbers in Bolivia and Ecuador just to run up astronomical phone charges.

“So, where are you?” Larry asked.

Cody sighed. “I made it as far as Townsend and an HP trooper picked me up and marched me back to town for that fucking missing headlight.”

Larry laughed. “Townsend? That’s all the further you got? You’re kidding.”

“So I spent the night bouncing off the walls of the Lariat Motor Lodge. I’d recommend it only because it’s probably the last place in America that still has black-and-white TVs in the rooms and bedspreads that remind you of your grandmother’s house.”

“You should have stayed home,” Larry said.

Cody grunted, “No way. I’ll be back on the road in a few minutes.”

Larry sighed.

“Have you heard anything back from ViCAP or RMIN?”

“Sort of,” Larry said. “RMIN is running the police reports from the most recent victim in Jackson Hole and they’ll be getting back to me. The case was classified as an accident but it sounds, well, real familiar. A woman named Karen Anthony, forty-six, divorced and living alone, was found dead in her home outside of Wilson. Same deal, Cody. Her place was burned down around her and she was found the next day underneath the debris. Head injuries the likely cause of death.”

Cody said, “Anything like what we’ve got in terms of an open stove, or the bottle?”

“Nope. The evidence so far doesn’t match up to ours. But the circumstances of the death ring true.”

Cody walked down the empty sidewalk, pacing. He noticed a face watching him from the window of the Commercial Bar. It was the cowboy he’d seen enter earlier. The man tipped his hat and took a deep drink from a beer mug as if to taunt him. The cowboy was drinking a red beer-spiced tomato juice and Bud Light. Cody used to start the day with one. Its properties were magical.

“Bastard,” Cody said.

“What?” Larry asked.

“Not you. What did Karen Anthony do? What was her job?”

“Let’s see,” Larry said. “Okay, here. She was an independent hospital consultant. Had her own firm, and apparently a pretty successful one. She had an office in Jackson and one in Denver, Minneapolis, and Omaha.”

Cody rubbed his face. “One of the victims was from Minnesota, right? Is there a connection there?”

“I don’t know. We’re too early in this thing. I’ve got a telephone meeting scheduled with an analyst at ViCAP later today so maybe we’ll be able to establish a link of some kind. The only thing I can figure, obviously, is Winters was a pharma guy and Karen Anthony was a hospital consultant. So maybe they worked together somehow or knew each other. But it’ll take a hell of a lot more digging.”

“Yeah,” Cody said. “We still don’t know anything about the Minnesota and Virginia deaths. They could be connected to these two or not. ViCAP might be able to help with that.”

Larry said, “And Cody, nothing really connects Winters and Anthony yet except for the burned-down houses and the proximity of the dates. This thread is so thin…”

“I know,” Cody said. “Keep me posted, okay? My cell should work all day until I get to Yellowstone.”

“So you’re still going,” Larry said.

“Damn right. Hey-did you get in touch with Jed McCarthy’s office yet?”

Larry paused while a diesel vehicle passed him, the engine hammering away. Then: “I’ve left two more messages to call me.”

Cody stopped. “You haven’t asked the Bozeman PD to roust it? Come on, Larry!”

Silence. Then it dawned on Cody but Larry spoke before he had a chance to apologize.

“You asshole,” Larry said. “You were supposed to be at that office when it opened. You weren’t supposed to be playing with yourself in fucking Townsend, Montana. And how would it have been for you if you showed up at Wilderness Adventures at the same time as the local cops? Don’t you think they’d ask questions? Don’t you think they’d figure out real damned quick you were a suspended detective and call up here and talk to Tub?”

“I know,” Cody said, “I’m sorry. You’re thinking clearly and I’m not. Thank you, Larry.”

“I’m tired of doing you favors,” Larry said.

“I know. I don’t blame you.”

“You are an unthinking prick sometimes,” Larry said.

“Okay,” Cody hissed, “I’ve got the point.”

“Good,” Larry said with finality.

Cody heard the rolling-thunder sound of the garage door being opened up. He turned to see the mechanic backing out his SUV. There was a headlight there, all right. It didn’t fit into the damaged fender but was wired and taped around the dented hole. It looked like a detached eyeball.

“I’m ready to roll,” Cody said. “Keep me posted on what you find out from ViCAP and RMIN.”

Larry sighed.

“You call me, I won’t call you,” Cody said, “but keep that burner phone handy and hidden, okay? In case I find something out from the office in Bozeman.”

“Gotcha,” Larry said.

“Thanks, buddy.”

Cody waved and took a deep breath as he drove by the highway patrol car pulled over on the side of the highway a mile out of Townsend. The trooper whooped on his siren and gestured for him to pull over.

Cody sat seething while the trooper slowly got out of his car and slowly walked up along the driver’s side. He powered the window down.

“Now what?” Cody said.

“I see you got a headlight. It doesn’t look so good, though,” the trooper said. “I hope you’ll get that front end fixed and get a new light as soon as you can.”

“I will.”

“I’ve got a question for you,” the trooper said, tipping his hat back and watching Cody’s face carefully for tics or tells. Cody knew the drill. He was about to be asked a question he wouldn’t want to answer, and the trooper hoped to catch him in a lie. “I ran your plates. According to the Department of Motor Vehicles, this vehicle doesn’t exist. Your number doesn’t correspond with a name, in other words.”

“That doesn’t surprise me,” Cody said quickly. “I bought it at a county auction up in Helena. They used to use it for undercover surveillance, the auctioneer told me. He said the sheriff’s department uses some dummy plates so the bad guys don’t know who they are. I guess they just kept the plates on.”

The trooper rubbed his chin, thinking that over.

“I’ll get some new plates as soon as I get home to Bozeman,” Cody said. “I promise you. I’ll send you the receipt to prove it.”

At that moment, the trooper’s handheld squawked. Cody heard the dispatcher reporting a one-car rollover five miles north of Townsend.

“Guess you better go,” Cody said.

The trooper hesitated for a moment, then said, “Send me that receipt. But something about that story of yours is fishy.”

“Check it out,” Cody said. “You’ll see.”

The trooper waved at him dismissively and started back to his car. Cody silently thanked whomever had lost control of their car north of town, and eased back out onto the road.

The headquarters for Wilderness Adventures was located south of Bozeman on U.S. 191 near the Gallatin Gateway Inn on the road to West Yellowstone and Yellowstone Park. Cody arrived at 1:30 P.M., cursing himself yet again for the debacle in Townsend that put him twelve hours behind where he wanted to be.

The office was a converted old home shaded by ancient cottonwoods and surrounded by rolling pasture and outbuildings and corrals in decent repair. Six or seven horses grazed and twitched their tails against the flies and didn’t look up to greet him. It wasn’t the kind of office guests were likely to visit, he thought, but no doubt it made for a good staging area for large-scale horse operations. The pasture fed the horses when they weren’t on a pack trip. The sign for Wilderness Adventures was homemade; a modern swooping logo painted on a frame made of old barnwood. There was an older blue sedan parked on the side of the building.

He killed the engine, vaulted up the wooden steps to the porch, and banged on the frame of the screen door.

“Yes?” A woman’s voice. She sounded startled.

“My name’s Cody Hoyt,” he said. “I need to talk to someone who knows something about the pack trip in Yellowstone.”

“Oh my,” said a plump older woman who suddenly came into view through the screen. “You weren’t booked on the trip, were you? Because it left this morning.”

Her name was Margaret Cooper and she was the sole office employee of Wilderness Adventures and had been for twenty-five years, she said. She wore thick glasses and her hair was tightly curled and looked like steel wool. She wore jeans, a white shirt that bulged in the middle, and a Western pattern vest embroidered with cowgirls and lariats. The lobby of the office was filled with large cardboard boxes reading DELL.

“We’re in the process of computerizing,” she said, shaking her head sadly. “Jed is making me learn how to run one of those things. He says it will make us more efficient, but I think it’s, you know, a fad. This old dog doesn’t need new tricks. I’ve been running the business part of the company all these years and I don’t need a machine. I’ve got everything I need in there,” she said, and gestured toward a bank of old metal filing cabinets. “I’m supposed to put all that information back there into the machine, and Jed says he wants me to update the Web site so he doesn’t have to do it from home. Can you imagine that? The World Wide Web? I want no part of it.”

Cody nodded curtly. He noticed the telephone on her desk was blinking with messages.

“Don’t you answer your phone?” he asked. “My colleague was calling you all morning.”

“Of course I answer the phone,” she said, her eyes flashing behind those thick lenses. “But it’s a little hard to do when you’re sitting in a computer class the entire morning learning how to work a program called Excella.”

“Excel,” Cody said. “So you haven’t been in until now?”

“I just got here a half hour ago,” she said, still miffed at him. “I was working. I just wasn’t here. Jed insisted I take that class once a week and today is the day.”

Cody said, “Do you have the list of clients on the current trip? I need to look at it.”

“Of course I have it,” she said. “But can you tell me why you want to see who is on it? Isn’t this kind of an invasion of privacy?”

Cody caught himself before he rolled his eyes. “I don’t see how it could be,” he said. “Look, I need to know if my son is on this trip. It’s important. There’s an emergency in the family.”

“You won’t be able to contact him,” she said, shaking her head. “There’s no way to communicate with a pack trip once they’ve left into the park. There are no cell things.”

“Towers,” he said. “Look, I know that. But if he’s on it I need to know. I’ll figure the rest out.”

She squinted at him and pursed her lips. “Your manner is very brusque.”

“Sorry,” he said, stepping toward her. “But show me the list.”

She made a show of sighing dramatically, then turned around and approached the filing cabinets. “I know where everything is,” she said. “I have my own filing system. Apparently, it aggravates Jed that he can’t find anything, even though I’ve tried to explain to him how it works. Let’s see, today is July first, so 07/01. Seven corresponds with G in the alphabet, the seventh letter. One corresponds with A…” She reached for a middle drawer and pulled it out and started fingering through tabs marked by handwritten letters.

Cody tried to remain calm.

“Here it is,” she said, pulling a file. “All the applications and signed releases of liability. And here,” she said, slipping a single handwritten sheet out of the file, “is the complete list in alphabetical order.”

He snatched it out of her hand and read down the list.

1. Anthony D’Amato

2. Walt Frank

“His Richness,” Cody mumbled. “Damn it.”

3. Justin Hoyt

“Damn it,” Cody whispered. “He’s on it.”

Cody scanned the rest of the list:

4. James Knox

5. Rachel Mina

6. Tristan Glode

7. Donna Glode

8. André Russell

9. Ted Sullivan

10. Gracie Sullivan

11. Danielle Sullivan

12. K. W. Wilson

None of the other names rang a bell. But he thought one of them might produce a ViCAP hit.

“I’ll need that back,” she said.

“In a minute,” he said, shuffling through the applications. Here, in the folder he held in his hand, were the names, addresses, physical descriptions, and details of each client on the trip. He was ecstatic. “Where’s your fax machine?”

“Is it long distance?” she asked. “You know, each fax is just like a long-distance phone call.”

Cody dug in his pocket and threw her a twenty-dollar bill. “That should cover it.”

“Where are you faxing the pages?” she asked.

“Just tell me where the goddamn machine is,” he said.

“No need to be like that,” she said, pointing to a supply room behind her.

While Cody fed in each page and transmitted it to Larry, he turned on the copy machine next to the fax. After each application was sent he made a copy for himself. Margaret Cooper was at her desk retrieving telephone messages, and had left him alone. He hoped she wouldn’t object to him making copies but it didn’t matter-he was taking the applications with him. Because one of these people, he thought, killed Hank Winters and was near his son.

When he was through he returned all the original documents to the folder and stuffed the copies in under his shirt.

He handed the folder to her at her desk.

“Why do you suppose a detective is calling me?” she asked him. “Is this your colleague? Are you a policeman?”

He nodded.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” she said, suddenly sitting up straighter.

“Undercover,” he said. “And this matter is confidential. Please tell no one I was here. Do you understand?”

She nodded furiously.

“Now I need you to think for a minute,” he said. “What is the best way to catch up to the pack trip? Don’t tell me the outfitter doesn’t have a satellite phone or some way to get in touch with the outside world.”

She shook her head. “I’m sorry, but he doesn’t.”

“How can that be in this day and age?” Cody spat. “What if the Park Service needs to contact him? What if he’s got an emergency, like a client has a heart attack or something?”

She smiled sympathetically. “Then he’s to locate a park ranger and the park ranger places the call. You don’t understand how they can be. The Park Service, I mean. Such bureaucracy! They’re the reason Bull Mitchell finally sold the business. I wish he never had. I know he wouldn’t be making me learn how to work a computer.”

Cody took a deep breath. “Okay, so I can’t call them. So how would I find them? Is there a designated route? Doesn’t the Web site indicate they stay at a specific camp every night of the trip?”

She nodded her head. “Unless they camp somewhere else,” she said. “Things happen out there. Sometimes they’ll camp in other places, or even on a different trail if the trail is washed out or trees fall over it or something. All I ever know is where they start and where they end. The middle is kind of… random.”

He slapped the desk in frustration. Then he said, “Where can I find Bull Mitchell?” Thinking: Does he even live in Bozeman? Is he alive?

She looked at her watch.

“It’s nearly two,” she said. “That means he’ll be at the library.”

“The library?”

A misty look came over her eyes. “You’ll see,” she said.

12

Gracie didn’t mind being so far back in the string at all. She liked being able to observe the riders ahead of her, something she couldn’t have done if her horse was higher in the pecking order.

Jed was first, trailing three mules strapped with massive pack-boxes of gear and food. He constantly turned in his saddle to make sure everyone was behind him and in the order he’d set for them.

Behind the mules was the older couple, Tristan and Donna Glode. Gracie hadn’t heard Tristan say much so far on the trip, but he had a kind of serious and businesslike bearing, she thought. His wife seemed cold and aloof, but Gracie noted how gracefully she’d climbed on the saddle and how elegantly she rode. She was the only guest wearing honest-to-God English riding boots. Gracie tried to model her riding style-relaxed, not slumping, head up, reins loose in her left hand-after Donna Glode. But that’s the only thing about Donna Glode Gracie wanted to learn.

Walt and Justin were next. Gracie noted how often Walt turned in his saddle and sized up his soon-to-be stepson and then nodded approvingly at what he saw. She wondered what it was Justin was doing that was worthy of the head nods since it seemed to her the only thing Justin wanted to do was bump along and steal looks at Danielle. Justin rode well, Gracie thought, the way a natural athlete would ride. He wasn’t smooth but he looked strong and well balanced. He had a certain style about him, an attitude: confident, cocky, maybe a little full of himself. He knew he was the only young buck on the trip. He apparently saw no reason to put his feet in the stirrups, for example, and they dangled on the sides of his horse.

Rachel, the divorcée or widow or whatever she was, rode behind Justin on a slick jet-black gelding. Gracie thought the horse, named Midnight, was by far the best-looking of the herd. Midnight’s coat was so black it shined dark blue, like Superman’s hair, Gracie thought. And Rachel Mina looked good on him. She wasn’t as self-consciously slick as Donna Glode, but she’d obviously ridden before. Her posture was good, Gracie thought, as she found herself sitting more upright in Strawberry’s saddle. Gracie thought it would be interesting to talk to Rachel Mina to find out why she’d come alone on a trip like this. She had a feeling the woman was interesting, or had a good story, at least. And was she mistaken, or did Rachel Mina smile at her earlier in an almost familiar way? Like they’d met before, which Gracie was certain hadn’t happened.

The three Wall Streeters rode behind Rachel Mina; James Knox, Drey Russell, and Tony D’Amato. Gracie guessed that maybe Knox had been on a horse before, and possibly Drey. But certainly not Tony, who kept saying things like, “Where is the brake on this thing?” and “What good is a saddle horn that doesn’t honk?” Tony kept the other two laughing with his stupid asides and observations, and Gracie guessed it was kind of an act. Tony pointed out each time Knox’s gelding’s long penis unfurled and swung loose from side to side as the horse walked, saying, “Look who’s relaxed,” or “He reminds me of me when he does that.” The three men together were interesting, she thought. She’d seen very few male friendships up close in her life and the way they chided and insulted each other was a way of showing affection, she guessed. If women talked like that to each other there would soon be scratching and blood. She also thought how quickly boring it would become if every other statement was about their sexual organs, as it was with the male Wall Streeters. Despite their goofiness, though, Gracie liked having the three men around. They seemed solid and anchored. Better than three women, she thought. Especially on a trip like this.

The strange man, K. W. Wilson, rode behind them on a pale gray gelding. Although he wasn’t wearing a black hat or shirt, there was something dark about him. Brooding but at times kind of smiling to himself. Like he had a secret or found his thoughts amusing. The ghostly pallor of his horse only added to the image. He was thin and his face was made of sharp planes shoved together, as if he’d once had a normal face but somebody crumpled it in from the sides where it bent like sheet metal. His eyes were mounted close over the sharp bridge of a hatchetlike nose. He needed a shave and the trip had barely even started. He didn’t seem to laugh at the jokes of the Wall Streeters, not at all. Gracie was wary of him, and unlike Rachel Mina, had zero desire to get to know him at all.

Her dad rode behind Wilson, and Danielle was just ahead. Danielle rode well even though she didn’t have a clue as to what she was doing. Gracie wished she filled her saddle as well as Danielle, and wondered if and when her own butt wouldn’t be skinny and bony like a boy’s. Already it hurt. She could use some of Danielle’s padding, she thought.

“How’s that horse ridin’?” Dakota Hill asked in a tone Gracie could hear but low enough the others couldn’t.

“Good,” Gracie said. “I really like her.”

“Strawberry’s a good little horse. You can depend on her. Just don’t get her too close to those horses up front if you can help it, especially that black one, Midnight. Midnight don’t like Strawberry.”

“That’s too bad,” Gracie said, again leaning forward and patting Strawberry’s neck, “’cause she’s such a sweet girl.”

“Yup.”

Gracie thought Dakota Hill looked like a natural cowgirl in a way that Jed didn’t look like a natural cowboy. She was the type of woman, Gracie thought, who would be almost beautiful if she wore makeup. But Dakota seemed determined to fight against type by playing at being gruff and no-nonsense. What kind of woman wanted to be known as a “mule-skinner”? Gracie was puzzled by her but oddly fascinated at the same time.

When she turned back around in the saddle with the smile still on her face, she was jarred by two sets of eyes directly on her. From the front, Jed McCarthy looked on in what seemed like disapproval. And from a few horses away, K. W. Wilson smirked.

They were walking their mounts through the middle of a large green saddle slope rimmed by trees on all four sides. The air smelled slightly of sulfur. Jed had walked his string off the trail and let the others pass by. Gracie could see him talking to each rider in turn as they rode past him.

As she rode up next to him he asked, “You and that horse getting along?”

“Yes.”

“You sit a nice horse,” he said, nudging his horse into a walk until they rode side by side.

“I’ve been telling everyone to make sure to stay on the trail,” he said. “It’s more important here in Yellowstone than anywhere else.” He gestured toward a large white patch of ground to their right about a hundred feet away. “See that there?”

“Yes.”

“See anything unusual about it?”

“There’s no grass on it, I guess.”

“Look closer. Look at it about an inch above the ground.”

She squinted and noticed how the air seemed to undulate slightly, as if it were underwater. In the center of the white patch, a slight wisp of steam or smoke curled out of a hole the size of a quarter.

“What is it?”

“This is the thing about this place,” he said. “That’s a fumarole, or steam vent. The white is a dried mineral crust that’s covering a place where superheated water comes up out of the ground. The hole there releases some of the steam. Otherwise, it might build up too much pressure and erupt.”

“Wow,” she said, shaking her head.

“The crust is brittle,” he said. “If you walked over the top of it or took your horse over there you’d break right through. The water underneath would scald the hell out of you or your horse. Might even kill you if you got bucked off in it.”

“Really?”

“Really. It’s the reason we have to stay together on the trail and not ride off. Those things are everywhere, and some are much worse,” he said. “There’s a little canyon in the park where so much methane gas is produced naturally out of the ground that any living thing that wanders into it will die within minutes. The floor of the canyon is covered in elk and bison bones, and maybe even some old Indian bones.”

He’d softened his voice and she found it oddly rhythmic. She felt a chill ripple through her.

“But when you look at that white patch,” he said, “I want you to imagine something else. Imagine most of Yellowstone Park itself is that white patch. There’s a real thin crust covering hell itself, which is trying to boil over. That wants to boil over. And someday, it will. It’s known as the Yellowstone Caldera. In fact, darlin’, when it blows it’ll take two million people with it. It’s blown a few times through history, and we’re sixty thousand years overdue.”

“Why are you telling me this?” she asked.

“To heighten your awareness,” he said. “I want every one of my clients to be awake.”

“I’m awake,” she said.

13

Although it once seemed like he lived in one, Cody Hoyt had not been in a public library for years. And as soon as he entered the Bozeman Public Library on East Main Street, he felt like he was being hurled back in time to when he rode his bike to the Helena library after telling his buddies he was going home. He loved the library, although he kept it in absolute confidence. Only the librarians knew, and they gave him his space and not-so-secretly delighted in the fact that a Hoyt of the violent and rough-hewn Hoyts was actually in their sanctuary of civilization. Often, a librarian would give him a sandwich because he was obviously missing dinner and he’d eat it at his own private table in the back.

He read everything; newspapers, magazines, hunting and fishing books, crime novels, biographies of American presidents, anything he could find on World War Two. He read reference books and Ripley’s Believe It or Not and sex manuals that got him all worked up. Not once did he check out a book and take it with him, because he didn’t dare take a chance that his dad would see it and tease him. And as far as his father knew, he wasn’t home because he was at football or wrestling practice. Since his dad never went to any games anyway, he never found out Cody didn’t participate in the sports he claimed he did.

Lying to his friends about going home and lying to his dad about staying at school started a prominent pattern in his life, he realized later. Leading parallel lives and telling serial lies helped prepare him for the trials and rigors of full-blown alcoholism, which, in itself, was like a second full-time-although secret-career. He’d learned early how to multitask.

Cody learned nothing in school and everything he knew in the library. He still read widely and constantly, and was never without a book in his glove compartment (along with a pint of bourbon). For the past year, he’d been alternating among Jim Harrison’s novels, John McPhee’s nonfiction, Flannery O’Connor’s short stories, and the crime novels of John Sandford, Ken Bruen, and T. Jefferson Parker. His books were stacked like Greek columns in his living room and basement. Once he finally built those bookshelves, he could showcase an impressive collection. But he never got around to it.

He was mildly surprised by the banks of computers and the teens and twenty-somethings at each terminal. As he walked past, he noted a familiarity in what they were doing-updating their Facebook pages. He thought, Some people used to go to libraries to gather information. Now they come to write about themselves.

He approached the information counter and a slim girl with bangs and a nose ring swiveled his direction and arched her eyebrows as if to say Yes?

“Someone told me Bull Mitchell would be here,” he said. “Do you have any idea where to find him?”

She pointed across her body past the reference book aisle. There was an archway painted with Mother Goose and Dr. Seuss characters and a sign that read children’s room.

“No,” Cody said, “I’m looking for an old guy named Bull Mitchell.”

She said, “Yes, and I’m telling you where to find him.”

Cody checked his wristwatch as he entered the children’s section, wondering how much time he was wasting when he should be coursing down the highway toward Yellowstone. But since he was here, he entered the room and walked toward the back where he could hear a gruff deep voice.

It’s me again, Hank the Cowdog.

I just got some terrible news. There’s been a murder on the ranch…

“Jesus Christ,” Cody grumbled.

Two young mothers were standing in the aisle and they turned when they heard him, and one of them lifted a finger to her lips to shush him. She was wearing a track suit and her blond hair was pulled back in a ponytail. She was vaguely attractive but already angry with him, so he looked to the other one. She was tall and slim with auburn hair and kind brown eyes and a nice mouth. Her face was wide open. She was pretty in a natural, athletic way.

He shrugged his apology and sidled up to them. He noted other mothers gathered along the windows on the side of the room.

“I’m looking for Bull Mitchell,” he said. “Do you know him?”

“Of course,” the tall woman whispered.“That’s him reading.”

Well, you know me. I’m no dummy. There’s a thin line between heroism and stupidity, and I try to stay on the south side of it…

“That’s Bull Mitchell?” Cody asked. “I can’t see him.”

“Here,” the tall woman said, stepping aside.

Cody nodded his thanks.

There, in the middle of twelve or thirteen kids gathered on the floor, was a big man sitting in a comically undersized chair wearing a heavy wool work shirt, jeans, and cowboy boots. His head was a cinder block mounted on wide powerful shoulders and his huge hands held The Original Adventures of Hank the Cowdog indelicately, like a grizzly cradling a candy cane. He had silver-white hair but jet-black crazy eyebrows that looked like smudges of soot. He was an unpracticed and halting reader, Cody thought, but when his voice boomed for exclamations like Good dog! and Will you please shut up? the walls seemed to shake and he likely scared the bejesus out of the kids.

That’s when he noticed a tiny white-haired woman in a wheelchair next to the seated children. She had a wool Pendleton trapper’s blanket over her lap and she leaned forward to listen with a gauzy smile of pure enchantment.

“What’s with the old lady?” Cody asked the tall woman. “What’s she doing here?”

She reacted as if he’d slapped her. The blond woman rolled her eyes and snorted in contempt.

“What?” Cody said, genuinely surprised and puzzled.

Oh Hank, there’s been a killing right here on the ranch and we slept through it!…

The tall woman said, “He’s my father and ‘the old lady’ is my mother. She’s in the advanced stages of Alzheimer’s, and this is the only way he can connect with her these days, by reading children’s stories.”

Cody slumped and sighed. “I’m such an asshole,” he said.

“Yes, you are,” the tall woman said. “But I can see you didn’t know.”

The blond mother shushed them both.

Cody said to the tall woman, “When he’s done will you introduce me to him?”

She almost smiled. “How can I introduce you when I don’t know your name?”

“Cody Hoyt,” he said. “I’m a cop.”

She eyed him suspiciously. “Is this official business? You don’t seem to have a badge.”

Cody said, “It’s more important than that. Give me a few minutes and I’ll lay it out.”

“Angela Mitchell,” she said, extending her hand. “I’m the proud daughter.”

Cody thought, In other circumstances I would like to get to know this woman.

The blond mother leaned toward them hissing, “Shhhhhh.”

And Bull Mitchell read:

… Being Head of Ranch Security is learning to ignore that kind of emotion. I mean, to hold down this job, you have to be cold and hard…

Cody hovered behind Angela and Bull Mitchell as Bull pushed his wife through the aisles in her wheelchair to the van to return her to the nursing home. The children had joined up with their mothers or nannies and dispersed. Bull said to Angela in a flat, declaratory tone not unlike his reading, “So who’s the guy?”

“He says his name is Cody Hoyt. He wants to meet you.”

“Hoyt?” Bull barked.

“Yes.”

“I knew a couple guys named Hoyt. One was a drunk and the other one was a criminal. Why does he want to meet me?”

“Hey,” Cody said, “I’m right here. I can speak for myself.”

Bull paused and twisted slightly to a quarter profile, as if he wasn’t sure turning around to talk to Cody was worth more than that. He looked Cody up and down, said nothing, and said to his daughter, “Tell him not to interrupt my stories, goddammit.”

“I apologize,” Cody said. “I just wasn’t expecting a guy named Bull in the children’s room.”

Bull kept his back to him and guided his wife’s wheelchair out the front doors of the library. The attendant in the van climbed out to help position her chair on the lift. Cody saw she was still smiling and her eyes were wistful. She was small and reed thin and her body seemed to be drawing inward as if to fold up on itself. Her back was hunched, which made her head stick out forward rather than up. A baby bird, Cody thought, she’s turning into a baby bird in the nest, stretching out on a long neck. He felt sorry for her, for Bull, for Angela, and for him being there at that moment.

In a wavery voice as light as mist she said to her husband, “That was a wonderful story, Mr. Bull. One of my favorites. I wish I could have read it to my daughter Angela, you know.”

“I know,” he said softly.

Cody noted how Angela flinched when she heard what her mother said. She didn’t say I’m right here, Mom. No point.

Bull dropped to his haunches so he was eye level with his wife. She smiled at him with big teeth stained by decades of coffee.

“Good-bye honey,” he said, and bent forward and kissed her on the forehead. “I’ll read to you in a week.”

Her waxen face flushed pink and she giggled and batted her eyes, admonishing him, “Mr. Bull…”

He leaned forward and whispered something in her ear and she blushed further and windmilled her tiny hands as if naughtily delighted by the words. Cody looked away.

The van driver activated the hydraulic lift and secured her in the van and drove away.

Angela said, “She was happy.”

Bull grunted.

“I think she’s falling for you,” Angela said.

“Who wouldn’t?” Bull said. Then he focused on Cody. His tone was gruff. “Now what do you want?”

Cody said, “Can I buy you and Angela a cup of coffee? I need your help.”

“You can buy me a beer,” Bull said. “Come on, I know a place a few blocks down.”

In the gloom of the Crystal Bar, the kind of old dive Cody loved with its dim lighting and the midafternoon musical clicking of pool balls from a table in back, Bull said to the waitress, “I’ll have a PBR.”

Cody hesitated a moment, then ordered a tonic water. Angela asked for coffee.

Bull eyed him across the table for an uncomfortable length of time, then said, “You don’t like Pabst Blue Ribbon or are you an alky?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Because only alkies drink tonic water. It kind of reminds ’em of a real drink. Or so I’ve been told.”

“Guilty,” Cody said.

“Thought so,” Bull said. “You have that look about you. Believe me, in this country I see that look you got a lot.”

Cody looked to Angela for help. She shrugged back with a that’s-the-way-he-is kind of look.

“So,” Bull Mitchell said, “why are we here?”

Cody shot a quick glance to Angela, then told the entire story, leaving nothing out. Hank Winters, his binge, the coroner, his suspension. Bull listened wordlessly. Angela squirmed toward the end, getting more and more alarmed.

“So that’s the deal,” Cody said. “I need to find that pack trip as fast as I can but I don’t know the park well enough and I’ve got to keep quiet about it or I’ll lose my job at the very least. You’re the only guy I can think of who is familiar with Jed McCarthy and ‘Back of Beyond: the Ultimate Yellowstone Backcountry Adventure.’”

Bull scowled, “I didn’t name it that. That was Jed’s deal. He thinks he’s a wizard with words.”

“And women,” Angela added acidly.

Cody waited for more but it didn’t come and she obviously wished she’d said nothing by the way she shifted her weight in the booth.

To Bull, Cody said, “You’ve done it, this trip I’m talking about, right?”

“Dozens of times,” Bull said. “I blazed the trail in the first place after the park rangers at the time said there was no realistic way to take packhorses where I told them I wanted to go. So I had to prove them wrong. I goddamn invented that trip.”

Cody tried to keep himself low-key and persuasive when what he really wanted to do was get going. He said, “Can you tell me how to find them? Where they left from, which trail they took? Where they’d likely be right now as we’re talking?”

Bull nodded. “Pretty close. But what are you going to do? Hike after them?” he said with sarcasm.

“Dad,” Angela said with alarm, “he wants you to guide him.”

Cody kept quiet.

Bull said, “I don’t do that kind of stuff anymore. I haven’t in years.”

“I’ll pay you,” Cody said, trying not to let Angela’s glare penetrate him.

“How much?” Bull said, gesturing to the waitress for another beer. “Jed McCarthy charges more than two grand a head.”

“I’ll pay you four,” Cody said, thinking he had barely eighteen hundred dollars between his checking and savings accounts and he could maybe get another thousand if he got his pickup running and sold it. Maybe he could get a thousand from Jenny, who could dip into the bottomless coffers of His Richness…

Bull scratched his chin, thinking about it.

“Dad,” Angela said, “this is crazy. It could be really dangerous. You said yourself horse packing like that is a young man’s game-that’s why you sold the business, remember?”

“I sold it because I couldn’t take dealing with the Feds anymore,” Bull said, flashing a look at Cody to gauge his reaction.

Angela put her hand on her father’s arm. “Dad, if you find them you’re finding a potential killer. Think of Mom.”

He just looked at her. His voice dropped. “Your mother is all I think about and you should know that by now. Do you have any idea how much that facility she’s in costs? Thirty-five hundred a month. A month. I’m burning through the savings.”

Angela didn’t back down. “Dad-if you’d get some help…”

“I don’t want any goddamn help,” he said flatly. “I never asked for it and I don’t want it now.”

She said as an aside to Cody, “We’ve had this discussion many times before. There are federal programs my parents qualify for but he won’t take the money. In fact, he sends it back with mean notes attached. I’ve read some of them and they’d curl your hair.”

Bull nodded. “If everybody did that we wouldn’t be in the shithouse like we are now.”

She said, “And you won’t let me help you, either.”

“Nope,” he said. “Taking charity from my daughter is the last thing I’d ever do. Might as well just shoot me in the head and leave me there if it comes to that.”

Angela said to him, “But you wouldn’t have to be seriously thinking about going back to the park right now. Like I said, think of Mom.”

“Your mother,” Bull said to her, “she don’t know me from week to week, Angela.”

“Then think of me.”

Bull placed his own massive hand on top of hers.

Cody said, “Five thousand just for trying. And two thousand bonus for finding them.” He’d get His Richness to kick in more. “That’s more than two months of care.”

Angela shot him a look that was designed to freeze him into silence.

Bull took the second beer and drank half of it in two long pulls.

Angela said to Cody, “With all due respect, you should be talking to the park rangers, not my dad. It’s their job to do this kind of thing in Yellowstone. And if you didn’t get yourself in trouble, you could be doing this all legitimate.”

Bull said, “Talk to the bureaucrats? The time it would take you to lay this all out to the Park Service and for them to have meetings and come up with a budget… hell, you don’t have that kind of time. And I doubt any of ’em really know the backcountry well enough to find that trip. They’d probably have to hire me anyway, as much as they’d hate that.”

“Exactly,” Cody said.

Bull leaned forward and his daughter’s hand dropped away from his arm. He said to Cody, “It’ll take me some time to put everything together. I haven’t used any of my equipment for a while.”

Cody nodded.

Bull said, “And we need to go in and get back within a week. One week, because I can’t miss the storytime. You got me? I can’t miss it. And I’ll tag a three-thousand-dollar-a-day penalty on you if we do.”

“Okay,” Cody said, refusing to even consider the ramifications. He could tell by Bull Mitchell’s eyes that it was a deal kill should Cody balk or want to negotiate further.

“I don’t suppose Margaret will mind us taking some of Jed’s horses and panniers,” Bull said to himself.

“Dad, you can’t be really thinking about this,” Angela said. “Just do the smart thing-both of you-and call the park rangers.”

“They’ll fuck it up,” Bull said, growling. “We can’t risk lives while they screw around.”

Angela left the booth and stomped toward the bathroom.

“She’s upset,” Bull Mitchell said. “In her mind, I’ve been out of the game for a long time.”

Cody said, “What you do at the library, man. It’s, you know, pretty dedicated.”

Bull shook the compliment off. “Gotta do something. She was there for me for forty-five years and believe it or not, being with me ain’t a sweet picnic all the time.”

“Somehow,” Cody said, “I can believe that.”

Bull stifled a smile.

Cody said, “You knew my dad and my uncle Jeter, then?”

“Yeah,” Bull said, his face contorting as if he’d bitten into something sour. “I turned in your uncle for poaching elk in Yellowstone, and he threatened to kill me for it. I said, ‘Come on down to Bozeman, Jeter Hoyt.’ I think he was on his way when the judge sent him to Deer Lodge the first time. I’ve been kind of looking out for him ever since. Is he still around?”

Cody looked away. “We can talk about it later.” Then: “Why are you called Bull?”

“’Cause I’m hung like one,” he said, and finished his beer.

As Angela came back to the booth, Bull said to Cody, “I’ll meet you at Jed’s place at four thirty tomorrow morning. Get some good boots and clothes and put your personal crap together in a duffel bag weighing no more than twenty pounds.”

Cody nodded. He was seeing Bull Mitchell the outfitter reemerge. “Any way we could get going sooner?” Cody asked. “I mean, I’ve already wasted a day.”

“That’s your problem, not mine,” Bull said. “I got things to get ready and business to put in order.”

Angela said, “I guess there’s no point in talking about it anymore.”

Bull said, “Nope. Sorry, sweetie. We’ve got to go get this young man’s boy.”

She said to her dad, “This has nothing to do with his boy. This has to do with you acting like one.”

Bull clapped his hand over his breast, and said, “Straight to the heart.”

Cody was outside the door of the Crystal Bar when Angela chased him down and grabbed his shoulder.

Her face was set. She said, “If my dad gets hurt on this trip, I’ll be your worst nightmare.”

Cody said, “I understand.”

“I don’t think you do,” she said. “I think you’re just focused on your son. But if my dad gets hurt or doesn’t come back-it’s on you. And if you think getting suspended from the sheriff’s department is a big deal, just wait to find out what it’s like to find me on the other side of the table.”

Cody said, fingering her card, which read ANGELA MITCHELL, ATTORNEY AT LAW, “I was kind of hoping we could be friends. But I’ve never gotten along real well with lawyers.”

“I’m shocked,” she said, her eyes flashing. She said, “I’m going to open a case file this afternoon with a tab that reads ‘Cody Hoyt.’ By the time I see you next I’ll know everything there is to know about you. And I have the feeling it’ll be a real thick file.”

He nodded. “You’re probably right.”

She said, “The only way you’re going to skate is if you bring him back better than he left and you do it within a week. Otherwise, I’m calling your sheriff and every cop I can find to come after you.”

“Got it,” he said, sliding the card in his pocket.

“Good,” she said. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to go help my dad get ready.”

He watched her storm back into the bar. He thought she looked pretty good doing that. He tried to imagine what her face would look like when she started researching his record.

“Another reason to get the hell out of here,” he said aloud to himself.

14

After Jed the outfitter peeled off the trail into the trees and called out “Welcome to Camp One, folks!” the long line of horses followed his lead, glad to be done working for the day. It was almost comical, Gracie thought, the way the animals just turned off the trail and at the same time they broke the psychic connection with their riders. They knew their shifts were done. Jed and Dakota led the mounts one by one to a makeshift corral designated by a single strand of white electric fence wire Jed had strung through the trees.

“Hey Jed,” D’Amato called out. “What-are these union horses?”

Which made most of the riders smile or laugh.

Gracie waited her turn to dismount behind Danielle, who was squirming in her saddle.

Gracie said, “What’s the problem?”

Danielle turned to Gracie. In an urgent whisper, said, “I have to pee. Where do I do that? In the woods like an animal?”

Gracie shrugged. That’s what she’d done earlier when nobody was looking.

It was late afternoon and to the east the sun shimmered across the surface of the southeast arm of Yellowstone Lake. Small lazy waves lapped against pink football-sized rocks on the shoreline, making background music like a cool jazz soundtrack. Far across the lake, dark timbered mountains plunged sharply into the water. The sultry warm afternoon was being penetrated by slight currents of colder air washing down through the trees from the mountains to the west.

Gracie was tired, sore, hungry, and mentally overwhelmed with the sights, sounds, and smells of the trip so far. She’d not only fallen in love with Strawberry, she was falling in love with the park itself. They’d seen a bull and a cow moose in the willows, five bison grazing on a treeless sagebrush hillside, and a bald eagle feeding on a fish. The national symbol stood on the bank of the river, tearing bloodred fillets off the sides of the trout and eying the riders as they passed. When they rode over the ridge, the Yellowstone River valley sprawled out before them. The vista was made up of endless mountains, lakes, clouds, and trees as far as she could see. All of it was lit in golden afternoon sunlight. The vastness and altitude made her slightly out of breath, and exhausted her.

It was another world and she’d willingly given herself up to it, holding back little.

“How’s it going?” Jed asked Gracie gruffly, taking the reins from her and guiding her horse toward the others.

“I’m blown away,” she whispered. “Dad told me it would be beautiful, but this is amazing.”

He smiled in a perfunctory way-his eyes were elsewhere as Danielle walked past after dismounting-and said, “It’ll get better tomorrow.”

“Better than blown away?” she said, realizing he hadn’t heard a word she’d said.

She waited with Danielle for their dad. Danielle shifted from foot to foot and grimaced. Most seemed to hurt already from the ride, Gracie observed. The Wall Streeters were moaning comically, with D’Amato flopping on his back in the grass and stretching out as if making snow angels. Walt had already broken out his fly rod near the water and was stringing line on it while Justin stood by him and watched and asked quiet fishing questions. She looked at her wristwatch: only five hours from the parking lot, but it was a completely different planet.

Gracie watched as Jed and Dakota led each unsaddled horse from the makeshift corral out through the trees to a sunlit grassy meadow. Strawberry, like the others, had a wet square of sweat on her back from where the saddle blanket had been. Dakota buckled some kind of straps on Strawberry’s fetlocks and returned for the next horse.

“Those must be hobbles,” Gracie said. “So the horses can move and graze but so they can’t run off. I’ve read about them.”

“So, are you going to find out?” Danielle asked Gracie impatiently.

“You’re the one who officially has to pee.”

“You’ll have to eventually. You can’t hold it in for five days.”

“I can,” Gracie said, deadpan, “I’ve been practicing.”

“You are so full of shit sometimes, girlie.”

Gracie shot a glance at her sister to see if she was making an intentional pun. Nope.

“Maybe we can get Dad to ask them,” Danielle said. “It’s sort of embarrassing. It’s like we’re just supposed to know everything even though none of us have been out here before.”

Their dad was obviously feeling the effects of the first day of riding as well, the way he limped toward them. Despite the apparent pain, though, he was beaming.

“Look at him,” Gracie said. “Look at his face.”

“What about it?”

“I’ve never seen him look so happy,” she said. “Look at that smile.”

Danielle studied him as he approached. “My God, you’re right. Who took our dad and switched him with this guy? He looks friggin’ goofy.”

Gracie giggled at that.

“What did I tell you, girls?” her dad said, shaking his head with pleasure. “Didn’t I tell you it would be great? I mean, look at this! It’s like we’re the first explorers in the Garden of Eden or something. Look,” he said, squeezing between them and pointing across the lake toward the trees. “You can see steam from a fumarole coming out from the trees over there.”

“A what?” Danielle asked.

“A fumarole. A steam vent. There are four kinds of thermal features in the world and all of them are in Yellowstone: geysers, mudpots, hot springs and fumaroles. That’s a fumarole. So we not only have this spectacular wilderness around us, we are also in one of the world’s most active thermal areas. Jed said there were over ten thousand thermal features in the park. It’s just amazing.” As he talked, he reached out and pulled both girls in to him. He said, “And there’s nobody on earth I’d rather share this with than my two girls.” Gracie smiled and felt a tiny sting of tears in the corners of her eyes.

“I have to pee,” Danielle said. “Do you know where the bathroom is, or do we just wander off into the trees like cavewomen?”

Gracie watched her dad flush. He said, “There aren’t any bathrooms.”

“It’s just an expression, dad,” Danielle said, rolling her eyes and hopping from foot to foot. “Could you go ask them?”

Her dad made a face, but he said, “Sure,” and started off for Dakota and Jed, who were carrying stacks of rolled-up tents toward a grassy shelf that overlooked the lake. Gracie glared at her sister.

“I’m sorry,” Danielle said, her eyes flashing. “I know it was a lovely family moment, but…”

While their dad talked with Jed, Gracie surveyed the group. Walt and Justin were still rigging up to fish. James Knox, Tony D’Amato, and Drey Russell stretched out on rocks and downed logs near them, listening to Walt explain the parts of his fly rod and the line to Justin, who stood by, feigning patience. It was obvious he was ready to take the rod from his stepfather and start casting. Tristan Glode stood quietly farther down the shoreline smoking a cigar and looking out over the water as if he owned it. Donna Glode had stripped to tight bicycle shorts and a tank top and was doing some kind of yoga or exercises in the middle of a clearing in the trees where Gracie guessed the cooking stove and eating area would be set up. Although the woman was isolated from the others, Gracie had the impression Donna wanted to be watched as she stretched her long limbs and bent over so her chiseled butt was in the air.

Over on the grassy bench where their dad had walked, Rachel Mina hovered near Jed and Dakota holding her duffel bag, looking like she couldn’t wait to get into her tent when it was set up.

Gracie narrowed her eyes and swept the area a second time. K. W. Wilson was nowhere to be seen. Maybe, she thought, he didn’t need instructions from Jed and Dakota where to relieve himself.

“You’re not going to like this very much,” her dad said to Danielle as he walked back to them. Gracie could tell he was suppressing a smile.

Said Danielle, “What?”

“There’s a little portable toilet up the mountain,” he said, pointing into the trees away from the lakefront. “Dakota said the trail goes up from the eating area over there where that lady is making a spectacle of herself. It’s about a quarter mile up the mountain, Dakota said.”

“A quarter mile?” Danielle cried.

“Park Service regulations, is what they told me,” her dad said, still controlling the grin. “Anyway, Dakota said she set it up first thing so you’re the inaugural user. There’s a roll of toilet paper in a Ziploc bag near the firepit.”

Danielle nodded and started for the trees.

“One more thing,” he said, winking at Gracie so Danielle couldn’t see him. “The Park Service has a regulation about the paper. After you’re done with it you need to bring it back down and throw it in the firepit. It has to be burned so there’s no trace.”

“What?” She was outraged. “I have to wipe myself and bring the paper back down? In my hand?”

He shrugged. “It’s the rules.”

Danielle turned to Gracie. “You’re coming with me.”

“I don’t have to go.”

Danielle narrowed her eyes. “You need to help me find it.”

“I don’t have to go.”

Her dad said, “Gracie, it would be nice if you went with her.”

“Let’s go now,” Danielle hissed.

Gracie said, “Ugh.”

“I’ll wait for you here,” their dad said. “I’ll figure out which tents we get in case you girls want to take a rest or change clothes or anything.”

It was striking, Gracie thought, how cool the temperature was in the shadows of the trees away from the lake and the clearings near the shore. She trudged along behind her sister’s long strides beneath the high canopy of the trees. They pushed their way up the hillside through knee-high ferns. At one point, Gracie turned and could see the sun-fused lake through an opening of branches and a glimpse of a yellow dome tent being set up on the grassy bench. Her dad stood near the yellow tent talking to Rachel Mina. Their conversation looked comfortable-even animated. Gracie was fascinated because she so rarely saw her father in the context of other people. Especially single women around his own age. She wondered if her dad was different with Rachel Mina. Maybe not so uptight and stiff as he was with them. And she wondered what Rachel Mina thought of him.

“Hmmm,” Gracie said.

“Come on,” Danielle said, “quit stopping.” Then: “My God-we have to have hiked a quarter of a mile so far. I wonder if we passed it?”

“We didn’t pass it,” Gracie said. “Keep going.”

“I might just drop my jeans and go right here.”

“Go ahead,” Gracie said, “I’m not stopping you.”

“Maybe a little farther,” Danielle said. “But if they think I’m carrying down the paper in my hands they’re out of their fucking minds. Jed can come up here and get it.”

“Sure, okay,” Gracie said, “let’s piss off the outfitter the very first night of the trip. That’s good thinking, Danielle.”

Her sister pushed her way through pine boughs and suddenly came to an abrupt stop before a small portable toilet with four metal legs and a square of plywood with a hole in the middle of it. A dark plastic bag hung down beneath the seat, the bottom of the bag inches from the pine-needle carpet. There were stunted pines near the apparatus, but basically it was in the open.

“Oh. My. God,” Danielle said, looking around as if trying to find the missing walls of the outhouse.

“Not a lot of privacy, is there?” Gracie said, needling her sister. “It’s like anybody could be hiding in the trees out there watching you. Or like a bear could come out of the woods and bite you on your naked white butt.

“Or ravens,” Gracie said, reveling in it, recalling when Danielle had once confessed her fear of the black birds. “Maybe ravens will fly down while you’re squatting and take a big old chunk out of your right cheek! You’ll be scarred! You’ll need surgery. You can never wear bikini bottoms again without people pointing and laughing at the girl with one ugly cheek!”

“Sometimes,” Danielle said, lowering her pants and shooting dagger eyes at her little sister while she squatted over the seat, “I could just kill you.”

Gracie turned away. It would be funnier, she thought, if she wouldn’t have to use the little toilet later.

And if she hadn’t just heard the muffled crack of a branch from someone coming up the trail toward them.

“What was that?” Danielle whispered. “I heard a sound. And don’t tell me it was bears or ravens.”

Gracie held her finger up to her lips to indicate to Danielle to be quiet, that she’d heard it too. Danielle’s eyes got wide and she mouthed, Who is it?

Gracie shrugged and stared into the forest below them. It was so green, wet, and dark up there, so different from the camp and the lake. So much foliage. So many places for a man or animal to hide.

“Keep them from coming up here until I’m through,” Danielle said.

Gracie put her hands on her hips and shouted, “Hey-whoever you are-give us a minute. We’re up here right now. Wait your turn, please.”

There was no response, which was disconcerting. Behind her, she could hear a hard stream of liquid strumming against the inside of the plastic toilet bag. Danielle was hurrying the best she could.

Then, after a beat, there was the sharp crack of a twig. Only this time, it wasn’t from below on the trail but to the side of them on the slope of the mountain. Whoever-or whatever-it was had deliberately left the trail and bushwhacked into the wet brush. For what reason, Gracie wondered-a better view?

“Hey,” Gracie called, “who’s out there?”

No response. She wished she had bear spray with her. Or a knife or club or some kind of weapon. She looked around and saw nothing she could really arm herself with. There was an old dry stick a couple of inches thick on the ground near her feet and she bent over to grab it, but it was rotten and broke apart as she lifted it.

Finally, Danielle was done. It had been only a few seconds but it seemed like forever to Gracie. Danielle cursed as she stood and fumbled for her thong and long pants. While she cinched her belt, she yelled, “This isn’t funny, pervert. Not funny at all. Hear me? Not funny.”

“Always the diplomat,” Gracie said under her breath.

Then there was a deep cough from the brush. It sounded closer than Gracie would have thought possible since she still couldn’t see anyone.

The cough did it. Gracie and Danielle exchanged terrified glances, then broke for the trail, their boots thumping the ground. Gracie thought about screaming, but didn’t.

Danielle passed her on the way down as Gracie paused to look over her shoulder to see if anyone was coming after them. She could see no one, although she thought she might have heard a chuckle.

“Did you hear that?” Gracie said to her sister as Danielle went by.

“What?”

“Somebody laughed.”

“Fucking pervert!” Danielle said over her shoulder before continuing down the switchback trail. Gracie followed. They ran down the trail for twenty feet before Danielle veered off, choosing to cut the corner for a more direct route through the brush. Danielle shoved branches aside that whipped back and hit Gracie in the face until she learned to duck under them.

Danielle led them into an impassible tangle of downed logs. The logs were old and gray, and blue-green lichen clung in clawlike pods in the elbows of branches. Something small, long, and dark scuttled out of the tangle away from them, rustling through the tall grass. Gracie couldn’t see what kind of animal it was.

“Shit,” Danielle said. “I don’t know if we can climb over this. It’s like we’re trapped here.”

“You trapped us,” Gracie said, letting her annoyance come through. “I thought you knew where you were going.”

Danielle turned on her and said with perfect logic, “So when have I ever known that?”

“You’re right. You’re off the hook.”

Danielle nodded triumphantly.

Said Gracie, “We’ll need to go back and find the trail. Then we can get back to camp. Whoever isn’t down there was up here. We’ll know who it was spying on you.”

Danielle said, “Which one of them do you think is the pervert?”

Gracie shrugged and led the way back until she broke through the foliage and found herself back on the trail. At least, she thought it was the right trail. For a second, she was confused which way to turn.

“Go right,” Danielle said, and Gracie did, even though she wasn’t any more confident of Danielle’s sense of direction than she was of her own. She made a promise to herself right then to wake up and pay more attention to her surroundings. She couldn’t just blindly follow Danielle, or Jed or Dakota or even her dad. She never wanted to feel lost like this again. Her stride lengthened and she picked up speed. The slope and the trees started to look familiar again. She almost ran through a mud bog but managed to skirt around it. The bog was the result of a thin trickle of water that came down from a spring somewhere higher on the mountain. She remembered the spot from the way up and felt a warm wave of relief because now she was sure they were going the right direction. But as she ran past it she noticed something different and stopped. Danielle practically ran over her.

“What?” her sister asked.

Gracie pointed toward the mud. “Look.”

There was half of a large fresh boot print on the edge of the mud, as if whomever had made it had tried to avoid stepping into the mud at the last second and almost succeeded.

Gracie wished she knew more about men’s boot sizes. But she could tell it was maybe a size ten or twelve since her dad wore size eight and these were bigger. The print had sharp lugs pressed into the dirt, a deep heel imprint, and a little diamond brand where the wearer’s arch was. The print was pointed up the trail.

“I don’t remember seeing that on the way, do you?” she said.

“No, but I didn’t look.”

Gracie nodded. “Memorize it. We may see who wears that boot later.”

When they broke through the trees into the sunshine Danielle passed Gracie again and they ran toward their dad. He was still standing next to Rachel Mina. All the tents were up and Dakota was shoving the last of the tent stakes into the soft ground. Gracie noticed an amused look on her father’s face as they approached.

“That go all right?” he asked.

Danielle answered with a rush of words. “Somebody up there was spying on me. He scared the shit out of us.”

Rather than concern, her dad suppressed a grin. “Come on, girls,” he said. “Who would do something like that?”

Gracie ignored him and concentrated on doing inventory of the camp. Not a lot had changed, although she noticed there were four men missing: Wilson, Tony, Knox, and Jed.

Her dad said, “Don’t let your imaginations get the best of you. Do you know how many animals there are up here?” It was obvious he didn’t want to believe them, didn’t want the trip to take this kind of unpleasant detour on the first day. Her dad didn’t like detours, or surprises, or events wrought with emotion. No matter what the situation or the crisis, his first words were generally I wish I would have known about this sooner, as if it were possible to know everything in advance and avert every problem if he just had the foreknowledge. It was a trait that annoyed Gracie because it always put the burden on her. Danielle was never expected to know anything in advance.

Her dad looked at both of them. Neither budged.

Gracie said, “Animals don’t wear boots.”

He sighed, said, “Okay, let’s go take a look.”

Gracie nodded and turned to lead the way.

“Mind if I come along?” Rachel Mina said to them as they started toward the trailhead up the mountain. “I overheard and I don’t like the idea of being spied on, either.”

Her dad said, “We’re not exactly sure what happened.” To Danielle, he asked, “Did the guy say anything at all?”

“No. He just coughed and laughed.”

“He laughed?”

Gracie and Danielle exchanged guilty looks.

“Gracie thought he did,” Danielle said.

“Did you feel threatened?” Rachel Mina asked them both.

“Pretty much, yeah,” Danielle said.

Said Gracie, “They should let us carry bear spray.”

“Or they should build a real fucking toilet,” Danielle mumbled.

“Language,” their dad said, and Gracie caught him shooting a quick glance to Rachel Mina to see her reaction to the profanity.

“Sorry.”

Her dad said, “Did you consider maybe he was as embarrassed to find you girls as you were? I mean, I’ve stumbled into a bathroom before and found somebody in it. It’s always a shock and I’ve been embarrassed. I remember opening the door on a stall once in a gas station and seeing this fat guy on the toilet looking at me. We were both kind of horrified.”

Rachel Mina laughed politely.

Her dad continued, “I remember I didn’t say anything-I was too red-faced. I just shut the door and went outside the station. When the guy finally came out neither one of us looked at each other. He went on his way, I went on mine. We both sort of pretended it didn’t happen, you know?”

Gracie hadn’t thought about it that way and she felt a needle of doubt creep in. Maybe they had overreacted with their shouting and Danielle calling him a pervert and all. Who would want to respond after being called a pervert? And much of the panic she’d felt earlier was more as a result of thinking she was lost in the forest than anything anyone did.

Still…

As they entered the trees Gracie did a 360-degree pivot to see if anyone was watching them carefully. Dakota waved from near the firepit where she was breaking sticks into kindling. No one else met her eyes.

Within five minutes she found the bog. The footprint was gone, obscured in the mud by a gnarled knot of pitchwood that had been dropped on top of it. Whoever had left the print had crushed it out of existence.

“It was here,” she said to her dad and Rachel.

“I’m sure it was,” he said, waggling his eyebrows in a way of saying maybe they’d been mistaken.

“It was,” Gracie said with less assurance.

“Who knows what we thought we saw?” Danielle said. “You know how you get. Remember when you used to say there was a werewolf under your bed?”

Her dad stifled a smile. Rachel looked away.

Gracie hated her sister at that moment.

When they returned to the camp, Jed was setting up the aluminum cooking station-a series of interconnected boxes that became a counter, sink, and chuck box-and Dakota set a coffeepot over the fire. James Knox, Drey Russell, and K. W. Wilson sat on separate logs watching the fire burn. All of them looked up as the Sullivans and Rachel entered the camp from the trees.

“Everything all right?” Jed asked.

“Fine,” Gracie’s dad said quickly. He wanted to preempt either of his daughters. To say something now, Gracie thought, would seem silly. She collapsed on a log bench to watch the fire across from her dad and Danielle, who chose another log. Rachel sat next to Gracie, saying nothing but sitting close enough that Gracie felt the woman was sympathizing with her. That was nice.

“You folks might want to get your stuff all laid out in your tents,” Dakota said. “We’ll have dinner ready in about an hour and it’ll get dark fast. This way, you won’t have to try to unpack everything by flashlight.”

Her dad slapped his knees and stood up. “Makes sense.”

As Gracie rose she noticed Wilson had changed into moccasins. Maybe, she thought, so they wouldn’t see that his boots had been muddy.

15

Cody chain-smoked cigarettes in his room at the Gallatin Gateway Inn, breaking the filters off each stick and lighting the new one from the cherry stub of the old one. It had only taken him two minutes to dismantle the smoke detector on the ceiling by unscrewing the faceplate and disconnecting the white and red wires. He hoped he’d remember to put it all right before he checked out in the morning.

He paced and surveyed his new gear piled on the bed. Before the stores closed, he’d found Ariat cowboy boots that didn’t hurt his feet at Powder Horn Sportsman’s Supply on Main as well as a straw cowboy hat, chaps, jeans, two sets of nylon saddlebags, and denim jacket. He’d felt foolish buying Western wear, but Bull Mitchell had insisted. Everything else he needed-sleeping bag, pad, water filter, daypack,.40 caliber Smith & Wesson cartridges,.223 rounds for his scoped departmental AR-15, a saddle sheath for the rifle, Steiner binoculars-he found at Bob Ward Sporting Goods on Max Avenue. Rounding out his purchases was a plastic grocery bag packed with two cartons of cigarettes, a long sleeve of Stride gum packets, plastic bottles of tonic water, and instant coffee. He’d spent five agonizing minutes staring at a pint of Wild Turkey behind the clerk’s head-Just one pint, just one, what could it hurt? Hell, he thought, he’d save it until he had Justin with him and the killer in cuffs or in the ground. It would be his reward.

While he argued with himself he tried to conjure up the image of Hank Winters saying, “Once you start you cannot stop. That is our curse.” Instead, the image of Hank was of a roasted and bloated arm reaching up from the black muck in the rain. And when the eager young clerk behind the counter asked, “May I help you?” Cody snapped, “Go to hell,” and stomped out of the place.

He felt guilty for that now.

He was pleased to find out they had available rooms at the Gallatin Gateway Inn-a restored grand hotel from the early railroad days-because it was less than a half mile from the headquarters of Wilderness Adventures. The female receptionist wore a crisp white shirt and sniffed at him, saying, “Please keep in mind we have a strict no-smoking policy here.”

“I thought this was a railroad hotel,” Cody said. “Railroaders smoked.”

“At one time,” the clerk said. “Many many years ago. And there aren’t any railroaders around here anymore, if you noticed.”

“So this is a snooty place,” he said.

“Not at all,” she said crisply.

He winked at her and gave her his credit card. After she took the imprint, he hauled all his gear to his room to unwrap his purchases, clip off the price tags, and fill two new nylon saddlebags. To hell with Bull Mitchell’s twenty-pound limit, he thought.

It was dark by the time he had everything packed. He’d made several trips to and from his Ford. There were things in the tool box and investigations lockers he wanted to take with him, including his rain gear. He was pleased he remembered to bring the Motorola Iridium 9505A handheld satellite phone. He’d stashed it in his SUV a few months ago after he stole it from the evidence room. Drug runners had used the phone so they wouldn’t be tracked via their cell phone calls by law enforcement, and the case was a slam dunk because the bad guys turned on each other so the phone was never introduced in court. The phone was small for a sat phone, less than a pound, and cost sixteen hundred dollars retail. It had three and a half hours of talk time without recharging and thirty-eight hours of stand-by time. He stuffed it in a saddlebag.

Then he sat at the small desk in the room, turned on the ancient banker’s lamp, and placed his cell phone within reach, waiting for Larry to call. It had been way too long not to have heard from him since he faxed the material, he thought. His partner must know something by now-he’d had the sheets all afternoon. Cody vowed to himself that if Larry didn’t call him by midnight he’d break his pledge and track Larry down like a dog.

He poured a glass of tonic over ice and lit yet another cigarette, and opened the file he’d taken from Margaret Cooper. He looked at his list of suspects:

1. Anthony D’Amato

2. Walt Franck

3. Justin Hoyt

4. James Knox

5. Rachel Mina

6. Tristan Glode

7. Donna Glode

8. André Russell

9. Ted Sullivan

10. Gracie Sullivan

11. Danielle Sullivan

12. K. W. Wilson

On the bottom of the page he scrawled,

13. Jed McCarthy

14. Dakota Hill

He thought, Everyone on the list could be the killer. Except Justin, of course.

The applications had arrived in Jed McCarthy’s office throughout the past year. They were designed to elicit information Jed needed to know to plan the trip and to match up horses with riders. There was a short questionnaire about dietary restrictions, riding ability, allergies, medical issues, and emergency contact information. The last item on the application was “What do you hope to gain from this backcountry wilderness experience?” Cody wished there were more questions and information but he was grateful he had what he had. He hoped Larry was running the whole lot of them through every criminal background database he could access.

Anthony D’Amato, thirty-four, was from Brooklyn, New York, and worked for Goldman Sachs. He was married, no children. He weighed 185 pounds and listed his wife Lisa as his emergency contact. He’d ridden a horse once, at the Iowa State Fair when he was visiting relatives as a teenager. He answered the last question, “To not be eaten by a wild animal.”

Walt Franck, fifty-four, listed his home locations as Aspen and Fort Collins, Colorado, as well as Omaha. He was a commercial Realtor and developer of strip malls in the Mountain West and Midwest. He was soon to be married to Jenny, Cody’s ex, and listed her as his emergency contact. Cody snorted derisively when he saw His Richness listed his weight as 220 pounds, and he planned hereafter to refer to him as “His Fat Richness.” Walt was a novice rider, and he hoped the trip would “provide unique fly-fishing locations and bonding opportunities for me and my future stepson.” Cody snorted again.

Justin Hoyt, seventeen, Fort Collins, 165 pounds, stepson of His Fat Richness, was next. Cody recognized the handwriting on the application as Jenny’s, and it elicited a sudden desire for her again that had been rekindled the night before. He shook it off and continued reading. She said Justin wanted to experience “nature and outdoor skills.”

“Shit,” Cody said. “Send him to me in Montana. I could do that.” But he doubted Justin had even seen the application, much less discussed it with his mother.

James Knox, thirty-seven, Manhattan. Not married but had a partner named Martha, who was also his emergency contact. Worked as an executive with Millennium Capital Advisors and weighed 180 pounds. He had no experience with horses, and wrote that he and his two friends wanted to experience “the nature and diversity of Yellowstone while waiting for the market to come back.”

Cody smiled at that, and skipped ahead in the stack to find the third of the buddies.

André Russell, thirty-nine, of Manhattan. Married, two children, a boy and a girl, ages twelve and nine. Wife and emergency contact was named Danika. A VP with J. P. Morgan and had ridden horses at stables in Central Park to prepare for the trip. Cody was impressed by that. For his ambition for the trip he wrote, “To try and keep Tony D’Amato from being eaten by wild animals.”

Cut-ups, Cody thought. Or liars. A three-man team of killers from the East? He shook his head. The idea didn’t grab him, and seemed much too cinematic and far-fetched. He moved on.

Rachel Mina was single. She didn’t indicate whether she was divorced, widowed, or never married. A hospital administrator on leave from Chicago. She was thirty-seven and weighed 115 pounds. In Cody’s experience, that meant he should add a few years and at least ten pounds, so he scratched in “40” and “125” on the page. Mina indicated she was a vegetarian (fish was okay) and intermediate rider. She wrote: “Discovery tour.”

He wondered what “on leave” meant. His first thought was she seemed to be the only one of the clients thus far who might have had the free time-and means-to visit homes in four states and leave bodies and ashes behind. But a woman, and a single one at that?

Discovery tour, Cody mouthed, squinting through smoke at the page. It sounded phony and new-agey, he thought. Or facetious. And an interaction between a hospital administrator and Hank Winters seemed possible.

He placed her application aside from the others into what he thought of as the hot stack.

Tristan Glode was the president and CEO of The Glode Company of St. Louis. Cody didn’t know what the company did but planned to find out. Glode was sixty-one and claimed to be an expert rider. He’d indicated he weighed 211 pounds and had written in the margin that he had bad knees and would prefer a Tennessee walker for a horse. In the margin, someone (Jed?) had scribbled, “Call Pat.” Cody guessed Pat, whomever he or she was, knew of a walker that could be leased for the trip.

In the space for what Tristan was seeking, he wrote, “TBD.” To be determined.

“What the hell does that mean?” Cody grumbled, thinking the man sounded arrogant. Asking for a specifically gaited horse, claiming to be an expert rider, listing his weight at 211 pounds. Anyone normal would write “210,” Cody thought.

He put Glode’s application in the hot stack with Mina’s. Now he had two prime suspects.

Then he read the next application: Donna Glode, sixty, St. Louis, 130 pounds. Another expert rider. For what she was seeking she wrote, “Yellowstone by horseback. A peaceful journey.”

So, husband and wife. Cody reached over and pulled Tristan’s application and put it on the cold pile along with his wife’s.

Ted Sullivan, forty-five, was divorced and lived in Minneapolis. He was a 185-pound software engineer with a firm called Anderson/Sullivan/Hart. He’d scratched an “X” between beginner and intermediate, slightly closer to beginner. Very precise and engineerlike, Cody thought. And in carefully printed handwriting, Sullivan said, “I hope to gain a closer and more intimate relationship with my daughters, Gracie and Danielle. I hope it will be the greatest shared experience of our lives.” He listed his emergency contact as his ex-wife.

Nice, Cody thought. Heartfelt. He skimmed over the applications for Sullivan’s daughters, ruling them out immediately.

He started to toss the three documents on the cold pile, then stopped himself. He retained Ted’s app and looked it over again. At first, he’d thought there would be no way for the father to have done the crimes with teenage girls around, and based out of Minneapolis. But because the man was divorced, that meant it was possible the girls hadn’t been with him until recently. Cody had never heard of Anderson/Sullivan/Hart but the fact that it was simply a string of surnames and that they apparently felt no need to add “software” or “consulting” or “business solutions” to the end of it indicated that they either wanted to be thought of highly or they were prestigious. Meaning it was a good likelihood Sullivan traveled. Cody often saw men like Sullivan in airports; road warriors who were constantly on their Bluetooth cell phones and computers, those things hanging out of their ears, talking to clients all over the country and checking in with their colleagues to form strategies and solutions.

But would a cold-blooded killer pause to take his daughters on a wilderness pack trip? Cody asked himself. His answer was, not likely. Still, though, he couldn’t rule him out and he put the application between the hot and cold stacks.

Cody looked at the last application and whistled. As he read over it he started to nod. Jesus:

K. W. Wilson, fifty-eight, Salt Lake City, Utah. No marital status indicated. No occupation listed except “transportation.” One hundred seventy pounds and an intermediate rider. Under dietary restrictions Wilson had scrawled, “No cheese.” For what he was seeking, Wilson had written, “Fishing and adventure.”

Cody said to the application, “Congratulations, you’re now number one,” and placed it on the hot stack.

Doubts remained, however, if he was even on the right track.

Cody remembered seeing a business center in the lobby with two computers for guests. He gathered the applications back into the file to take them downstairs. He’d find more about all of the names, as well as get some background on The Glode Company, Anderson/Sullivan/Hart, Rachel Mina’s hospital, and anything he could locate on K. W. Wilson.

His cell went off and danced across the surface of the desk since he’d set it to ring and vibrate.

He checked the display: Larry.

“About time,” he said.

“Are you sitting down?” Larry asked.

16

Gracie wished she’d unpacked her heavier jacket because when the sun doused behind the mountains the temperature dropped a quick twenty degrees or more within minutes, as if the thin mountain air was incapable of retaining the afternoon heat. She thought about going back to her tent to dig out her hoodie, but the instant darkness didn’t encourage a trip and the warmth and light of the campfire held her in place as if it had strong gravitational pull.

She was sitting on a smooth downed log with Danielle and Justin. She couldn’t stop staring into the fire, which was mesmerizing. The meal had been huge and consisted of things she normally didn’t like that much: steak, baked potatoes, baked beans, half a cob of corn dripping with butter. She’d wolfed most of it down, leaving only a quarter of the steak. She had no idea why she’d felt so hungry, or how the food possibly tasted so good. The apple cobbler baked in a jet-black Dutch oven was one of the best things she’d ever eaten, and she’d had two helpings of it. Her mouth still tasted of cinnamon from the cobbler and hot fat from the meat. Now, the entire meal sat in her stomach as heavy as a rock, and it made her sleepy and uncomfortable.

Normally, Gracie hated it when portions of food touched each other on her plate. This time, though, she didn’t care that the steak tasted of bean juice and the potato turned pink because it sat in pooled grease. It was all so wonderful she’d nearly forgotten about what had happened earlier. But not completely.

Earlier, when Dakota had twirled an iron bar around on the inside of a battered metal triangle to signal dinner, they’d all stopped whatever it was they were doing and lined up at the portable aluminum kitchen station holding empty tin plates. One by one, they presented their plates so Jed McCarthy and Dakota could serve the slabs of meat and plop down the sides. The line was interrupted once when Tony D’Amato whooped-and jumped back-when he saw a snake slither through the grass between his feet.

“Damn,” he shouted, his voice high-pitched. “It went over my boot.”

Dakota reacted quickly and tossed her spoon aside and chased down the snake. She grabbed it behind its head and held it up, asking if anyone wanted it for dinner. D’Amato and his friends laughed at that, and he seemed embarrassed by his outcry. Danielle, who was standing in line in front of Gracie, had turned and said, “Great. Snakes, too. This place sucks.”

“It’s harmless,” Gracie said. “It’s just a snake. Maybe we should try it.”

“Just a snake,” Danielle said. “Jesus, you’re weird.”

Gracie sat quietly while Justin and Danielle talked. She eavesdropped halfheartedly, absorbed with re-creating the incident up at the latrine that Danielle seemed to have already forgotten. Something had happened up there that bothered her, because it suggested someone on the trip had an agenda besides the adventure itself. It reminded her that people could be evil, something she believed more and more the older she got.

Danielle, however, was at her charming best. Subjects ranged from their schools to Facebook pages to sports, television shows, and bands. Gracie found herself rolling her eyes each time Danielle and Justin discovered more and more common bonds. When Danielle mentioned their parents were divorced, Justin said, “Shit, mine too.”

Justin was handsome and well built but shallow, Gracie thought. Exactly Danielle’s type. Gracie wanted to warn him now, before it was too late. But she didn’t think he wanted to know what her sister could be like, how she collected and discarded boys like him. And, Gracie thought, maybe he wouldn’t even care. It wasn’t like he was on the trip to establish a meaningful relationship, was it?

The more Gracie stared at the fire, the more interesting it was. Unlike her sister and Justin.

“So your dad has you for the summer?” Justin asked Danielle.

“Sort of,” her sister said, keeping her voice low so only Justin-and Gracie, unfortunately-could hear her. “My dad’s had a bug up his butt about this trip for a year. It’s like a father-daughter bonding thing, I guess.”

Justin said, “Same here, only Walt is my stepdad. He thinks we’ll become lifelong buds after this or something. He thinks fly-fishing is, you know, religious or something. And it’s all right, I like it and all, but Walt is kind of old and everything. So I don’t know.”

“What’s your real dad like?” Danielle asked, leaning closer to him. “Is he around, I mean?”

Justin hesitated, then shook his head. “He’s okay. He’s a cop. He’s tough to figure out. Sometimes he’s a great guy, and sometimes he’s just an asshole.”

Danielle acted like that was the funniest thing she’d ever heard, and covered her mouth while she leaned back and laughed, making sure to grasp Justin’s thigh to keep her balance.

“He’s in Montana,” Justin said, “but he calls me and stuff. He never knows what to say and neither do I. He sends me stuff-fishing rods, computer games, CDs, things he thinks I’ll like. But,” he said, leaning even closer to her and lowering his voice, “sometimes he forgets to take the evidence tags off. I mean, I’ll get a set of walkie-talkies with a piece of tape on ’em that says ‘Exhibit A’ or some damned thing.”

Which made Danielle squeal with laughter. Gracie tried to tune her out.

After a few minutes, Danielle shoved her and nearly knocked her off the log. Justin chuckled.

“What?” Gracie said.

“I was talking to you,” her sister said softly, not wanting the others to overhear.

“I thought you were talking to Jason.”

“Justin,” she corrected. “And I was. I was telling him about what happened earlier up on the mountain and I said you were there as my witness.”

Gracie looked over. Their faces were lit with firelight. Justin was good-looking, but the way his eyes reflected the fire made him look kind of creepy. And, she wondered, was it him? Then she dismissed it because he’d been fishing with Walt at the time.

Justin leaned toward her, resting his hand on Danielle’s knee. Her sister didn’t seem to mind.

“So you think it was that Wilson guy?” Justin whispered.

“I don’t know,” Gracie said. “But I noticed he’s wearing moccasins tonight so we can’t see his boots.”

Justin started to turn his head to confirm it but Danielle clasped her hands on both sides of his face and said, “Don’t look, silly. He’ll know we’re onto him.”

Then she stood up. “Now just keep an eye on him. I’ve got to go pee.”

“Again?” Gracie said.

Danielle narrowed her eyes at her sister and said, “This time I’m not going up to that stupid toilet. I’ll be back in a second. Don’t try to steal Justin away, as if you could.”

After she was gone, Gracie and Justin sat together uncomfortably. Or at least Gracie did.

Justin said, “Your sister seems nice.”

“She isn’t.”

Justin chuckled. “I guess what I mean is she could be nice, if she tried.”

“Don’t count on it,” Gracie said, warming to him. “I know her.”

“There’s good in everybody, Gracie.”

She looked over to see if he was serious. He was. He said, “I always expect the best out of people. I think when you do that, you get the best most of the time. I just kind of bump along, expecting the best, and good things just happen. That’s my secret.”

She said, “Why are you telling me your secret?” She was flattered. She thought a strapping, good-looking guy like Justin would be unapproachable in every instance. He was too handsome, too confident, and too cool.

“I’ll tell anyone who will listen,” he said softly. “What I can’t figure out is why everybody doesn’t do it. Look for the best, I mean. It’s easy, and it makes life go easier.”

Gracie just stared. He was too good to be true, she thought. Her instincts were not to trust him.

“That’s a nice thing, I guess,” she said to her shoes.

“Sure it is. Just accept yourself and look for the good in others. It’s not complicated.”

“Do you see good in me?” Gracie asked.

He smiled. He even had a nice smile. “Of course. You watch out for your sister and your dad, I think.”

“So who watches out for me?”

“I will, if you want,” he said sincerely.

Gracie shook her head. She’d never met someone so comfortable in their own skin. It weirded her out. There must be more to him, she thought. A dark side. But when she looked into his open face and that impossible smile, she couldn’t see it. No one was that good. Maybe he was a sociopath. And she felt immediately guilty for thinking it.

“See how it works?” he said, as if reading her mind.

Gracie was grateful when Danielle suddenly reappeared and grasped Justin’s face between her hands before sitting back down.

Justin didn’t pull his face away, and smiled at Danielle sloppily. He liked it. Gracie rolled her eyes again and looked back to the fire. “Hey, look,” Justin said to Danielle, “out on the lake. Can you see what’s going on?”

“What?” her sister asked.

“The fish are rising.”

Gracie followed his outstretched arm. The moon lit the still surface of the lake in light blue and sure enough, ringlets were appearing everywhere, as if it were raining upside down.

Justin said, “Want to go down to the shore with me and see if we can catch one?”

Danielle was up like a shot. She stood in front of Gracie and blocked the light and heat, and Gracie felt as if she’d been plunged into cold. She started to stand but Danielle reached back and put a hand on her shoulder, preventing her from rising. Danielle turned and bent over close to her ear, and said, “Not you.”

Justin winked and asked Gracie, “Do you want to come along?”

“No,” Danielle said. “She doesn’t.”

And Gracie thought, She doesn’t deserve him.

After they’d left, Gracie considered asking Dakota to help her find that snake so she could put it into the bottom of her sister’s sleeping bag.

She hugged herself against the chill, now that her sister had abandoned her. It seemed very late but it wasn’t even ten yet. The sky was a bright smear of stars she’d never known existed before, and the busy sky above and the absolute darkness of everything beyond the fire made her feel smaller than she’d ever felt.

The campfire was the hub that held everyone in place. When it started to die Dakota or Jeb would leave their place behind the cooking station where they were washing dishes and toss another piece of wood on it.

She observed the others without staring at them.

The Glodes kept to themselves. They were the farthest away from Gracie, on the opposite side of the fire. Tristan Glode smoked a big black cigar, and the glow danced in the darkness. Donna stared into the fire as if she were comatose. Gracie thought that although they were by themselves they weren’t really with each other. It was as if there were a wall between them even though they were a couple of feet apart. How sad, she thought.

Two of the three Wall Streeters, Tony D’Amato and Drey Russell, were whittling on sticks and joking about it. Everything, it seemed, was a joke to them. Little light-colored piles of shavings gathered on their boots, and the blades from their pocketknives flashed in the firelight.

“A year ago,” D’Amato said in a singsong, bluesy cadence, “I was looking out over the Sea of Cortez from my air-conditioned bungalow in Baja. Now here I am in the freezing mountains, sittin’ on a log. Whittlin’.”

“You a whittlin’ man,” Russell sang along.

“I’m a whittlin’ man,” D’Amato sang back. “Whittlin’ ’til I ain’t got no stick left.”

“You a whittlin’ man…”

“Think I’ll whittle me a boat and float on out of here back to Baja…”

“He a whittlin’ man who ain’t a-scared of no snakes!” Russell laughed, and the two of them collapsed in on each other. Luckily, they held their knives out to the side.

“You guys are embarrassing me,” James Knox said from the cooking station.

Gracie found herself staring at them with more than a little awe. Knox caught her, smiled, and said, “Do you find us strange?”

Embarrassed, she said, “I’ve never met any New Yorkers before. I’ve heard about you and read about you and you’re on all the television shows, but…”

D’Amato laughed. “But you’ve never met any of us in real life. You make me feel like a zoo animal or something.”

“Sorry,” she said, and looked down. It was just that they were exactly how they were portrayed, and she’d always thought they couldn’t possibly really be like that: fast-talking, ethnic, animated. Like they were playing the roles of New Yorkers according to the script. Just like TV. But she didn’t say it.

To the right, Gracie’s dad was perched on a large rock next to Rachel Mina, who sat in the grass with her plate in her lap, finishing her dinner. Gracie had noted how Rachel had waited patiently for everyone else to be served steaks before getting her dinner-panfried fish and the last of the beans and corn. She admired the fact that Rachel hadn’t made a fuss but simply waited for her nonmeat meal. Too many of Gracie’s vegetarian friends went on and on about their preferences in the lunchroom, she thought. On and on about what they could eat and what they wouldn’t. They could learn something from Rachel Mina. The clicking of her utensils on the tin plate was rhythmic and delicate and Gracie hoped that someday she could be as graceful and feminine when she ate.

Then, obviously thinking no one was paying attention, her dad reached down and snatched a small piece of fish off Rachel’s plate and popped it in his mouth. She looked back but rather than object, she smiled at him. Her dad raised his eyebrows in an It’s actually good gesture. Rachel turned back around and finished her plate.

It had happened quickly, and without a sound. But Gracie sat transfixed as if a thunderbolt had hit her in the chest.

They knew each other, she thought. The scene had a kind of sweet intimacy about it, like it had happened often before and had become a shared joke.

They knew each other. Really well.

She felt bushwhacked. Her eyes misted and she looked away.

When she opened them she saw Wilson, who’d suddenly appeared from the direction of the tents. Standing there, staring at her, his face lit orange with firelight.

“What do you want?” she asked, too loudly.

The others around the campfire stopped talking or doing what they were doing. Jed and Dakota peered over the top of the cooking station, washcloths poised and still.

“Goodness, little girl,” Wilson said. “What is your problem?” He looked at the others with his palms open and held up. “All I did was walk up here to get warm. I didn’t do anything.”

No one said a word. A beat passed, and she was glad no one could see her face flush red. She wiped angrily at the tears in her eyes with the back of her sleeve.

From the right, her dad said, “Gracie, are you okay?”

She stood up and refused to look at him. “I’m going to bed,” she said, and started for the tents.

She was gone before her eyes could adjust from the fire to the total darkness, and she tripped over a root or rock and she sprawled forward. She landed spread-eagle, grass in her mouth.

Somebody-D’Amato or Russell or Jed-barked a laugh. Someone else said, “Cool it, that’s rude.”

“Sorry.”

She scrambled to her feet spitting grass and dried weed buds and stomped toward the tents. D’Amato called out to her, “Sorry, darlin’, I didn’t mean to laugh at you. Come on back and join us.”

And her dad followed her, saying, “Gracie, what’s going on? Are you all right, Gracie?”

She kept going until she approached the collection of tents. She wasn’t sure at first which was hers-they all looked alike. Nine lightweight dome tents, looking in the soft moonlight like plump pillows.

“Gracie,” her dad said, finally grasping her hand.

She pulled away. The third one, she thought. Her stuff was in the third one from the top.

He grabbed her again, said, “Honey…”

She wheeled on him. “When were you going to tell us?” she asked, her voice catching like ratchets on sobs. “Is this why you brought us with you? So you could be with your secret girlfriend?”

Her dad just stood there. She could see his stupid face in the moonlight. His mouth was moving but nothing was coming out. He finally said, “Gracie… really…”

But what she heard was his lack of denial.

“Stay away from me!” she said, and she dove into the opening of her tent. It was small inside but the sleeping bags cushioned her dive. She spun and zipped the opening closed. As she did, her last glimpse of her dad was of him standing there like an idiot with a swarm of stars around his head, trying to come up with the right words-as if there were any. She said, “Go away. This is the worst fucking trip of my life.”

Inside, she could hear him. For five minutes, he stood there, breathing shallow breaths. Then he moaned and said, “I was waiting for the right time to talk with you girls. Really, honey.”

She didn’t respond.

Finally, he turned and trudged away back toward the fire.

An hour later, Gracie heard footfalls approaching the tent and she opened her eyes. She hoped it wasn’t her dad coming back, and if so she planned to feign sleep.

The door zipper hummed and she sat up, alert.

Danielle said, “Oh my God, I love him.”

Gracie flopped back down.

“He’s so damned cute I want to eat him up,” Danielle said. “He tried to help me cast to the fish but I couldn’t get past how he put his arms around me. Damn, he’s hot and I love him.”

Gracie said, “Did you think for a second I might be asleep?”

Danielle hesitated, said, “No.” Then went on, “Before I came back here he gave me just a little kiss-nothing major-and said, ‘To be continued.’ Is that classy and cool, or what? Is that awesome, or what?”

Gracie rolled away from her.

“What’s your problem?” Danielle asked.

Gracie told her sister about their dad and Rachel Mina.

“You’re kidding,” Danielle said, finally.

“I’m not.”

Danielle shook her head back and forth. “That just doesn’t seem right,” she said.

Before Gracie could agree, Danielle said, “She’s much too awesome for him. What does she see in the guy?”

In the dark, Gracie covered her face with her hands and moaned.

“They’re all still out there,” Danielle said, regaining her stride, pushing the news aside. “Except for Justin, I mean. He went to his tent, too. Gee, I wonder what he’s doing in there all alone?” she giggled.

Gracie said nothing.

“I saw one of the Wall Streeters open a bottle,” she said. “I think they’re all going to pass it around and tell stories or something. I hope they don’t stay up too late or get too loud, ’cause we need to get some sleep.”

“You think?” Gracie said.

“Yeah, there’s a big day tomorrow,” Danielle said, slipping out of her clothing to her sports bra and wriggling into a pair of light sweatpants. “At least it’ll be a big day for me.”

“That’s what’s important,” Gracie mumbled.

“Are you being sarcastic?”

“Never.”

“Well, don’t,” Danielle said, sliding into her sleeping bag and pulling the zipper up. “It’s boring.”

“Justin is too good to be true,” Gracie said.

“He is, isn’t he?”

Gracie thought any more conversation would lead to an argument. “Good night.”

“Good night, Gracie.”

She lay brooding in the dark for hours. Occasionally, she could hear a whoop or laugh from the direction of the campfire. Danielle’s breathing got deeper and she slept the sleep of the dead and Gracie wished she’d gotten that snake from Dakota.

She’d never hated her father before.

17

Larry said to Cody, “A pattern is emerging in these cases.”

Cody felt his scalp tighten. He stood. “You mean besides the method of death, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Where are you now?”

“At the office. Unauthorized overtime, as usual.”

“Good,” Cody said, standing and gathering his files under an arm while holding the phone with the other. He snuffed out his cigarette, pocketed the keycard, and pushed his way out into the hallway. “I’m at a hotel and I saw a business center downstairs. I’ll go down there and fire up one of the computers so we can both be online.”

“Want me to call you back?”

“No way,” Cody said. “I’ve been waiting all night to hear from you. Don’t worry, I can walk and talk at the same time.”

The hallway was shadowed and cavernous and he padded down the carpeting toward a curving staircase at the end. As he approached he could hear a swell of conversation and laughter from the lounge on the first floor.

Cody descended the stairs. Across the lobby the receptionist saw him and nodded. He nodded back, gestured toward the closed door of the business center, and the receptionist indicated it was open for use. He sat at a PC beneath a window that looked out into the lobby. The doorway to the lounge was straight ahead, and he could make out bodies inside lining a bar. The men and women were well dressed with the women in dresses and men in suit jackets with no ties, about as formal as Montanans were likely to get. The crowd looked young and elite; professionals out after a concert or fundraiser. The kind he usually made a point to avoid.

“So what’s the connection?” Cody asked Larry as he placed the files on the counter next to the computer.

Larry said, “Before I spill it, let me say this is pure speculation at this point.”

Cody sighed. “Of course.”

“And it’s just me right now. I don’t have anyone else on the case to confirm what I’m saying or poke holes in it.”

“Yes, Larry,” Cody said impatiently.

“Let me walk you through it,” Larry said. “Got a pen?”

“Sure,” Cody said, firing up the PC and waiting for it to boot. He opened one of the files to take notes on the front inside cover.

“First,” Larry said, “we’ve got nothing new on our end. The arson tech is still sifting through the burned-out cabin and they’ve confirmed everything we thought. I talked to one of them today and he said there was no sign of accelerants, which tilts it toward an accident rather than a homicide, but in my mind it isn’t convincing. The place was old and dry to begin with and built with logs. Those kinds of buildings go up like a box of matches, especially when there is spilled alcohol on the floor to help it along. The guy said the fire spread normally from right in front of the open woodstove throughout the room.”

Cody said, “Has anything else been found by the crime-scene techs? Hair, fiber, anything like that?”

“Nope. It looks like whoever did it literally left no fingerprints. But more likely, he spent the whole evening in the living area and didn’t venture into the kitchen. There are some latents in the bedroom, as you know, but we don’t have any hits on them yet.”

“Damn,” Cody said. “Call me if anything comes of that.”

“Yeah,” Larry said. “I’m thinking the bad guy knew the best way to cover his tracks was to burn everything down around him when he was through.”

Cody nodded. “I agree. It accomplishes a couple of things. The fire not only destroyed any latent evidence, the fire itself points us away from homicide.”

“Speaking of,” Larry said, “the three victims other than Hank Winters I found through ViCAP all died within the last month. There might be more and there could be other methods of death, but for now that’s our universe, okay?”

Cody nodded as if Larry could see him. He could hear Larry shuffling papers.

“The first was a William Geraghty, sixty-three, of Falls Church, Virginia. The police report on him says he was a midlevel Democratic political consultant. He was found at his beach house three and a half weeks ago. His cottage was burned down and his body was found in the wreckage. The police there initially called it an accident but a few days later a witness said they saw a vehicle coming from the place in the dark shortly after it was established the blaze took off. No good description of the vehicle or driver, but because the cottage was located on a dead-end road and it was the middle of the night, the car was considered suspicious. The autopsy of Geraghty sounds real similar: blunt-force head injuries and lack of smoke in his lungs. The cops there list it as a possible homicide and the case is open. I spoke to the lead detective in Falls Church and he basically said there has been no progress in the case; no further leads at all.”

“Sounds familiar,” Cody said.

“Yes. But in this case the fire damage was total. They didn’t have rain to stop it. Which means no hair or fiber, and no DNA to run.”

While Larry talked, Cody Googled the name “William Geraghty” and found items including his death notice in the local paper and older references to his involvement in political campaigns throughout the country. He would study the items later, when Larry was done.

“What do we know about him besides his job and his death?” Cody asked.

“I’m getting to that, but let me do this in my own way.”

Cody knew better than to try and get Larry to cut to the chase.

Larry said, “The second victim identified by ViCAP is Gary Shulze, fifty-nine, Minneapolis. This was two weeks ago. He was a professor of literature at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. His body was found at his cabin near a place called Deer River in the northeast corner of the state on Lake Winnibigoshish. Same thing we’re getting used to: burned cabin, body inside, head injuries. The difference here is it appears there was a deep puncture wound into his brain as opposed to bludgeoning. The wound was initially explained away as a postmortem injury caused by glass shards driven into his body by falling timbers, but the coroner doesn’t rule out the possibility it was caused by a knife blade driven into his skull and withdrawn. Obviously, the locals initially thought it was a suicide or accident, but Shulze’s wife Pat convinced them her husband had recently cleaned up his act and had undergone some kind of conversion. She said he was loving life. There was no way he’d do himself in, she said. Of course, we’ve heard that kind of thing before from loved ones, but the detective told me she was so convincing that they listed the case as open even though they have their doubts.”

Cody opened another window on the browser and Googled the name “Gary Shulze.” In addition to his participation on various literature councils and a personnel listing for the U of M faculty, there were death notices in both the Minneapolis Star Tribune and the Western Itasca Review.

“Same total crime scene devastation as Geraghty,” Larry said. “No traces of evidence have been found that point to anything other than an accident involving a single victim.”

Larry sighed. “The last one before Hank Winters is the one we know about, the close one in terms of time and mileage.”

Cody said, “Karen Anthony.”

“Yeah, her,” Larry said. “Forty-six-year-old hospital consultant living in Jackson Hole and Boise. She’s a little different because her place in Jackson-actually Wilson, Wyoming, outside of town-was some kind of historic home she’d refurbished. Like Geraghty’s, the place is pretty remote and only accessible by a two-track through the trees. A neighbor saw a vehicle come down their shared road about a half hour before he noticed the flames up on the hill and called the fire department. The Teton County Sheriff told me they got a partial on the vehicle: dark blue or black SUV, single driver, light-colored license plates, which apparently means out-of-state but the witness couldn’t tell which.”

“That’s no help,” Cody said. “Finding an SUV in Wyoming is like looking for a fly at the dump-they’re everywhere.”

“I know,” Larry said.

“So,” Cody said, opening another window and typing in Karen Anthony’s name, “we’ve got three victims who basically died the same way, burned in their homes long before the fire could be put out. And the victims are all roughly middle-aged and professional. And alone. That’s a string of similarities but really not much to build on.”

“Exactly,” Larry said. “I spent half the day reading and rereading all of the police reports, trying to find something that linked them beyond the obvious and trying to find a connection to Hank Winters.”

“And?” Cody said.

“Nada,” Larry said. “The cops I talked to couldn’t come up with anything either. When I told them about the other cases, they were surprised there were similar incidents. So nobody has been looking into this as a pattern, including the FBI.”

“So,” Larry said, “I took a flyer and called Geraghty’s wife in Falls Church. I told her who I was and what I was investigating, and you know how that goes. She was falling all over herself trying to help. My guess is she hadn’t heard from the locals since shortly after the fire because they didn’t have anything to tell her. So she was excited I was working it.”

Cody nodded, then said, “Hmmm,” so Larry would know he was listening.

“I asked the usual. Any enemies, ex-wives, business problems or rivals, financial problems, et cetera.”

“Hmmm.”

Larry said, “What she told me was almost too good to be true. She said they’d had some real rough patches in their marriage but that Geraghty had straightened up in the last few years and everything was fucking wonderful. She said that was the worst part about it all-that things were going so well when it happened.”

Cody felt a jangle in his chest. He said, “Didn’t Shulze’s wife say kind of the same thing?”

“That hit me, too,” Larry said. “So I kept asking Mrs. Geraghty questions. She was a little reluctant at first, but she finally spilled the beans. Geraghty was a big drinker for a long time. A good-time-Charlie type who spent a lot of time on the road with other political types. Between the lines, I got the vibe he was abusive to her when he was on a toot. But she said after he got a DUI he finally entered a twelve-step program and cleaned up his act. She said he’s been stone-cold sober for the last two and a half years.

“So I called Pat Shulze,” Larry said. “After a while, I got the same story. Shulze had checked himself into rehab three years before because the university made him, and it took. She said it was like having the guy she married back. He was writing a book about his recovery and doing speaking engagements at faculty association meetings around the country, I guess. He even had a Web site on recovery where he answered questions and such.”

“Damn,” Cody said. “So what about Karen Anthony?”

Larry said, “I called her sister in Omaha. Same deal. She said Anthony was a hard partier all her life until the last five years, when she found Jesus and AA. So it looks like our guy is targeting ex-alcoholics.”

“Christ,” Cody said, thinking of Hank. “That’s just wrong.” Then: “For the record, there’s no such thing. But we can talk about that later.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Larry said.

Cody paused. “I’m trying to wrap my mind around this. So we’ve got a guy traveling the country and setting up rendezvous with recovering alcoholics, then bushwhacking them in their homes. I see a pattern but not a motive.”

“Me neither,” Larry said. “I’ve been racking my brain. Who would want to go after people who’d straightened out their lives? What’s the point of that?”

Cody grumbled that he didn’t know, then thought of something. “Larry, did any of the locals in Virginia, Minnesota, or Wyoming find any AA coins at the scenes?”

He could hear Larry shuffling through papers. “No mention of them anywhere,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean anything for sure. They didn’t catalog every item they found at the scene. No reason to.”

“Unless,” Cody said, “the bad guy is taking the coins with him like he did with Hank. That way the locals wouldn’t even have a reason to bring the AA angle into the picture. Hell, we wouldn’t have gone down that road if I didn’t know Hank took his coins with him everywhere he went.”

“I didn’t think of that, dammit,” Larry said. “Or I would have asked the detectives.”

“Find out,” Cody said.

“I will tomorrow,” Larry said. “But we still don’t know why our bad guy even knew them at all.”

“I don’t know,” Cody said, “unless maybe the victims did something to the guy before they sobered up. Maybe, I don’t know,” he said. “I can’t come up with a scenario that makes any sense. Not without knowing if the victims even knew each other or were ever in the same place.”

Larry agreed. “We’ve got four different locations thousands of miles apart. Four different lines of work. I can’t see where they possibly intersect.”

“This is going to take some fine police work,” Cody said. “Can you pull in the cops in all those states to help?”

“Some,” Larry said, his voice dropping. “But you know how it goes. They’re all up to their asses in alligators. They’ll probably all agree to help, but no one is going to make this top priority. I can’t blame them. I’d do the same thing if one of them asked me. I’d put it on the back burner and concentrate on my local caseload. I wouldn’t drop everything to go investigate this based on my speculation.”

“What about the Feds?” Cody asked.

“I’ve got a call in to them,” Larry said. “Which means I had to clear it with the sheriff and Bodean. Luckily, I asked Tubman in the middle of another blowup with the coroner who, by the way, announced his intention to run for sheriff next year.”

“Did Tubman ask about me?” Cody asked.

“Not yet. But Bodean hit the roof. I walked him through what I had so far thinking he’d ease off, but he came unglued. He said if I heard from you I was to tell you to get your ass back here ASAP.”

Cody exhaled deeply. “Duly noted.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised to see Bodean throw his hat in the ring for sheriff,” Larry said. “He seems to suddenly be doing damage control.”

Cody’s mind was elsewhere. He said, “Larry, this seems like the right track, but I can’t see things coming together fast. I need them to come together fast.”

“I need a lot of things I can’t get,” Larry huffed. “Like a raise and some hair.”

“Sorry,” Cody said. “I’ve got to think about all this. We have to be able to connect the victims with somebody or someplace. Then we can get the other agencies and departments moving, once we’ve done that.”

“Agreed. But it’s that first part that seems impossible,” Larry said, gloomy.

“You can do it,” Cody said. “If anyone can.”

“Yeah,” Larry said, “I know.”

“I’m still going after Justin tomorrow,” Cody said. “I’ll turn on that satellite phone. Call me with anything else, and I’ll do the same.”

After a beat, Larry said, “Are you going to alert the Park Service that you’re entering their sacred domain?”

“Hell no.”

“Cody…”

“They’ll just muck it up. I don’t have the time for them to have a bunch of meetings and go up the chain of command. I have to find my boy and put this bad guy on ice.”

Larry was exasperated. “How many violations are you going to break on this deal? I can’t even keep track.”

Cody shrugged. “I don’t care,” he said.

“Look,” Larry said, “you may not care but I’m complicit in every stupid thing you do. So I’m going to cover my ass a little. I’ve already figured out that the sheriff is so distracted by Skeeter I can claim I told him everything at some point and he’ll probably believe me. He won’t know the difference. Of course, Bodean is a different animal. I’ll have to figure out how to bypass him.”

Cody agreed.

Larry said, “And tomorrow I’m going to call a buddy of mine named Rick Doerring with the Park Service. He’s the ranger I met last year.”

Cody shook his head, not liking where this was headed. “Last year?”

“Yeah, remember when someone from Bozeman called in that they saw a small plane headed toward Yellowstone? Remember, the citizen said the plane looked damaged and it was flying real low toward the park.”

Cody vaguely remembered the incident. From what he could recall, the FAA had no record of the aircraft and there were no reports of a missing plane. Since Larry and Bodean were the departmental assignees to an interagency Homeland Security Task Force, they’d had to scramble because unknown airplanes headed for federal land were a big deal these days. Rick Doerring was on the task force as well. The plane was never found, and no one ever reported it missing. The incident faded away quickly.

“Rick is a good guy,” Larry said. “Almost normal, for a Fed. I may run this by him on the sly and see what he says.”

“I can’t stop you,” Cody said. “But at least give it until the afternoon. By then, I should be deep into the park where he-or you-can never find me. I don’t want their help with this unless it’s on my terms.”

Larry didn’t agree, but he didn’t argue.

“Look at the bright side,” Larry said. “Your son is likely not a recovering alcoholic.” It was meant to be funny.

“No,” Cody said, “but why is our guy on this particular trip? What is he after, or is it his way of hiding out after his spree? No matter how you cut it, the guy must be a little desperate after all he’s done. I wouldn’t think anyone around him would be very safe,” he said, tapping the file of Jed McCarthy’s clients.

“We still don’t know if he’s on the trip,” Larry said.

“I know,” Cody replied. “Don’t remind me how much of a leap this is.”

“So where are you now?” Larry asked.

Cody said, “Close to the park.”

There was a beat of silence. Larry said, “You’re not going to say, then?”

“Nope.”

“Don’t you trust me?”

Cody said, “Larry, you’re the only guy I trust. But the less you know, the better for both of us. As you said, you’re complicit in every stupid thing I do.”

Larry snorted. “I see your point. But answer me this, cowboy. How in the hell are you going to find this pack trip in the middle of the wilderness?”

Cody said, “I’ve got a plan.”

“I hope it’s a good one.”

Cody said, “Me, too.”

He showered and left his clothes in a pile on the bathroom floor, and slipped into bed naked. He set his alarm for 3:30 A.M. and called the front desk and requested a wake-up call for the same time.

He knew he wouldn’t sleep. Couldn’t. The things Larry had told him swirled around the dark ceiling, darting in and out of his consciousness. He hoped strands of what he knew would somehow miraculously connect and he’d sit bolt upright with an epiphany and suddenly know the connections as well as the answers.

Didn’t happen.

What did happen, two hours later, was the slight creak of old flooring outside in the hallway. He turned his head in bed and glanced at the digital clock that showed 2:23 A.M. glowing in red.

When he smelled a sharp odor he thought it must be his breath. Then he recognized it as lighter fluid.

Cody propped up on an elbow and stared at the yellow bar of light beneath the door to his room. He rubbed his eyes and tried to convince himself what was happening was not his imagination. Two shadows of feet were evenly spaced within the bar. Someone was standing just outside. And there was a growing pool of liquid that streamed from under it across the tile floor, rivulets reaching out toward his bed like grasping fingers.

Then the distinct sound of a match being struck.

18

Jed McCarthy liked the way the situation was shaping up. He considered himself a kind of master of managing group dynamics, and he had once again proved himself right. He tried not to act too smug or vainglorious about it, although it wasn’t easy.

It had started out with an hour or so of stories after dinner, after Ted Sullivan had come back from the tents. After he’d had some kind of scene with the youngest daughter. Sullivan had settled back on the log next to Rachel Mina and they shared a long, sad look that told Jed as much as he needed to know about them. Sullivan sat with his head down and his arms hanging between his legs, as if he’d received a slip of paper in a game of charades that said Dejected. Jed had left his place with Dakota behind the cooking station and conspicuously walked around the fire. All the voices quieted and faces turned toward him. He handed Sullivan a bottle of Jim Beam. Sullivan took it, both surprised and grateful for the gesture, and took a long drink that made his eyes water and sparkle from the fire. Sullivan offered the bottle to Rachel, who said, “No thanks.” The man tried to give the bottle back, and Jed said, “Keep it. Have another drink, then pass it around.”

From that moment on, Jed knew he had Sullivan on his side. A gesture was all it took with weak men like Sullivan who weren’t used to them from men who weren’t weak, like Jed. It elevated Sullivan in the eyes of the others that Jed had sought him out like that. The only person who didn’t appear impressed was Rachel Mina, who eyed Jed with caution. Jed pretended not to notice.

He returned to the cooking station and monitored the progress of the bottle as it made its way around the campfire, and soon there were other bottles as well.

Inhibitions lowered as voices rose, and Jed made it a point to keep the fire going but not too brightly. Just bright enough he could see their faces and expressions and confirm they were all on the tracks he wanted them to be on.

He felt Dakota’s eyes on him. She was standing beside him at the cooking station, washing dishes and the pots and pans.

Finally, he glanced over at her and mouthed, What?

She whispered, “What in the hell are you thinking?”

He grinned and looked away.

“Why are you doing this?” she asked. “You’ve always told me to keep our alcohol packed away for later, in the tent. You’ve never brought it out before, and you sure as hell haven’t passed it around.”

He thought her whisper was getting loud enough to be overheard, so he did a quick survey of his guests to see if anyone was looking up. Nope.

“I know what I’m doing,” he said. “Don’t question me with the guests present.”

She grunted her assent.

He said, sotto voce, “And don’t forget you’ve got a mission tonight.”

“Which tent is his?” she asked softly. That meant she was still with him, even though she was angry. But she still wouldn’t meet his eyes.

“The blue and green Mountain Hardwear.”

“The one with the stain on the side of it?”

“That’s the one.”

She nodded that she understood.

He again reached out for her and she jerked away again and he left her there fuming.

“Hope you don’t mind if I join you,” Jed said to his guests, taking the sitting log used earlier by the Sullivan girls and Walt’s soon-to-be stepson.

“Cool,” James Knox said, “please do.”

“And to what do we owe this pleasure?” Tristan Glode asked.

“I’ve got a proposition for you folks a little later,” Jed said. “But first I’d like to have a drink.”

“Try this,” Walt Franck said, offering the single malt.

Jed raised his eyebrows in false trepidation, getting a couple of laughs, then sipped the smooth liquor. It burned nicely on the way down. He said, “It’s not Jim Beam, but it’s pretty good,” to more laughs.

Jed let them ask him to expound about Yellowstone, wildlife, horses, and outfitting. He did, but not at great length. He wanted them wanting more.

He did a quick inventory. The Sullivan girls and Walt’s stepson Justin had gone to their tents. Perfect, he thought. He didn’t want the young ones to weigh in. Sullivan Senior sat by Rachel, Sullivan still moping over whatever it was his daughter was worked up about, but coming out of it. The alcohol helped. Rachel looked on at Sullivan as if sizing him up, as if unsure of her conclusion. Women only thought they liked weak men, Jed surmised. Jed wondered what she’d be like with a strong one. Probably a pain in the ass, he thought.

The three Wall Streeters sat on the ground on a tarp with their backs to a downed log and their feet splayed before the fire. They passed their bottles back and forth. They were tired and getting pleasantly drunk. He doubted they’d make a late night of it, but he didn’t want things to get too wild before he made his proposition. Drey Russell had been quiet a long time and wasn’t as boisterous as Knox or D’Amato. Jed wondered if Russell was having a good time, or doing his best to pretend he was. Russell seemed introspective. Jed wondered if Russell had camped much in his youth, or been in the mountains in such a raw state before.

Tristan and Donna Glode sat on separate stumps to the left of the Wall Streeters. Tristan did take a sip of the single malt but declined the Jim Beam, which didn’t surprise Jed. Donna gulped both, to hoots from D’Amato and Knox, and Jed stifled a smile. This woman was a drinker. And a looker, in her day. Too bad her day had passed. Jed had a feeling Donna was grinning a bit too much at D’Amato and Russell. D’Amato seemed to respond, but Russell had none of it. When he saw her lean over and touch D’Amato on the knee to ask for a sip of his tequila, he saw potential trouble brewing for Tristan.

Jed focused on Tristan, and thought he had the man figured out. He seemed uncomfortable, but not because of Donna. Jed got the impression Tristan was a man used to being catered to and he fancied himself an outdoorsman but he didn’t necessarily enjoy being with other clients not in his social stratum. The joshing and passing of the bottles didn’t amuse him but he knew enough about human nature to know if he got up and left he’d be talked about and made the butt of jokes. So he stayed and endured and simply hoped the night would break up early. Tristan had made it clear to Jed he’d studied their route in advance and was as familiar with it as anyone could be.

For that reason, Jed saw Tristan as a challenge. He hoped he’d be able to turn him. And now that he saw Donna flirting with D’Amato, he knew he had leverage he hadn’t before.

K. W. Wilson sat alone. He was dark and quiet. When Walt Franck offered him a sip of Scotch, he started to reach out for it, then declined. Jed found that interesting, and wondered why Wilson wasn’t drinking. He looked like a drinker. His haunted eyes and hollow cheeks practically told drinking stories of their own. But he didn’t take a sip, meaning he was choosing to be antisocial or he had a problem. Or an agenda, something he wanted to keep sharp for. Jed shot a quick look over his shoulder. Dakota was gone. He smiled to himself. It wouldn’t be long before he knew a lot more about K. W. Wilson. Not that it would matter all that much in his strategy, which was to use Wilson’s sour personality as a tool to isolate him and to make his opinion irrelevant, whatever it would turn out to be.

Walt Franck was simply affable. He was slightly younger than Tristan, Donna, and Wilson, but older than the rest. He laughed politely at jokes but told none of his own. Jed thought he might be concerned that his son Justin had suddenly found a new interest-Danielle Sullivan-that might change the purpose of the trip from stepfather/stepson bonding to the blind pursuit of a hot little chick. Surely, Walt wouldn’t really welcome that development, even though there was next to nothing he could do about it. Jed knew that trying to stand between a hormone-fueled teenager and his love interest was akin to walking between a grizzly sow and her cubs, and Walt didn’t look dumb enough to do either. Walt’s distraction would help Jed, though, and that’s all that mattered.

After a few minutes, Rachel Mina stood up and announced she was going to her tent for the night. She said it in a way that made it obvious she expected Ted Sullivan to go with her. Obvious, that is, for everyone except Ted Sullivan, who took a bottle from Knox and took another swig.

“Before you go,” Jed said, “I wanted to float a proposition. I’ll go with whatever you all decide. This is a simple majority rule deal, and I’ll go with the majority because it’s your trip.”

She still eyed him with doubt and put her hands on her hips, waiting. He decided right then he’d need to either win her over or isolate her if she didn’t fall in line. It would be her choice either way it went.

Jed gathered himself to his feet and cleared his throat. “What I’m wondering about,” he said, “is how married everyone is to the route and the trail we talked about this morning to get to our next camp tomorrow night.”

He let that settle in a moment before continuing. “Here’s what I’m thinking. We’ve had a boatload of rain up here this summer, much more than usual. I mentioned it this morning to Tristan,” he said, nodding toward Glode. “See, the trail down along the Yellowstone River is pretty swampy, even in a good year. As I mentioned before we left, the snowpack took a long time to melt this year because there was so much of it and the temperatures have been so cool, plus all the rain we’ve had. I’m concerned if we go down there the regular way we might be walking our horses through miles and miles of gunk. That’s no fun and it slows us way down. It’s hard going for the animals, plus it means mosquitoes. There’s also the possibility the trail is washed out enough that we might lose quite a bit of time finding work-arounds.”

Jed presented his left palm to the group and pointed to it with his right index finger.

“If my palm here is a map, think of the lifeline as the Yellowstone River,” he said, tracing it from top to bottom. “The trail parallels the river pretty much, going north to south. Normally when we get almost to the southern border of the park,” he jabbed the heel of his hand with his finger, “we take the fork by South Boundary Creek and leave the river valley and cut due west into the mountains up toward the Continental Divide and Two Ocean Pass. That’s where we’ve got our camp for tomorrow night, up on Two Ocean.”

He looked up to make sure everyone was paying attention. They were, although only Tristan Glode and K. W. Wilson seemed rapt. The rest looked pliable.

He continued, moving his finger up an inch on his palm. “So what I’m proposing we do tomorrow is leave the trail earlier than we’d normally turn west. That means cutting to the west between Phlox Creek and Chipmunk Creek. I’ve been studying my topo map and it looks doable. We still have to climb up into the mountains and we should still be able to get to our camp, it’s just that we’re arriving an unconventional way through country that probably hasn’t seen ten people in a hundred years.”

Somebody, likely D’Amato, whistled.

“Excuse me,” Tristan cut in, “but I remember asking you about the trail this morning. You didn’t indicate then we may have trouble.”

Jed said patiently, “Mr. Glode, I believe I did. I said it was possible the trail might be washed out in places. This is the first time I’ve been up this way this year, so there was no way to know for sure. Even the Park Service doesn’t send many rangers down where we’re going until hunting season when they try to guard against poachers coming up from Wyoming. There were really heavy snows last winter and big runoff this spring and the rain this summer. I don’t think there’s been anyone down that direction yet this season to provide a report.”

“So what changed your mind?” Tristan asked. There was an edge to his voice.

19

The ignition of the lighter fluid had been instant, less than a second after Cody heard the match strike. There was a whump that sucked most of the air out of the room and his lungs, which left him gasping. Bitter smoke lit hellishly with the orange and blue tongues of flame. His eyes filled with water and his lungs screamed from smoke he inhaled rather than air and he thought he knew how Hank Winters and the others must have felt if they were conscious in their last moments.

Outside the door, he heard footfalls thumping down the hallway so quickly he knew he’d never be able to catch who did it.

The flame seemed to burn away his sense of time as well. He had no idea if it was seconds or minutes before he scrambled out of the bed and stood naked. Since it was pushed against the wall, the only way he could get out was toward the fire. It had likely been a few seconds since the whump; he felt sluggish and cloudy-headed and blind due to the thick smoke. He felt around his feet for the saddlebags because he needed to save them. As he reached toward one of them it ignited, the fire eating up the nylon exterior as if starving for it. He managed to snatch the other one off the floor before it went up, too, and he backed around the foot of the bed into the bathroom. He stood trembling, his back against the sink, gasping, looking through the doorframe at the violent orange glow in the bedroom. He squatted to his haunches and he was able to get below the roiling bank of black smoke. He sucked in the superheated air and was thankful his lungs didn’t explode. The fire had consumed the rug near the door and was curling the flooring. It spread to the sheets and comforter of his bed. He gathered his discarded clothes in his arms.

Then he remembered why the smoke detector didn’t trigger an alarm or activate the sprinkler system, and thought, Shit!

He reached behind him into the bank of smoke for the sink. When he found it he turned on both taps, then stood and jammed down the stopper with the heel of his hand so the sink filled. While the fire in the bedroom was snapping angrily, he grabbed two towels off the rack and plunged them into the water to soak it up.

His riding boots were within reach in the bedroom near the bed and he found them and pulled them on. The soles were hot. He shoved his arms into a hotel bathrobe that was hanging from a hook behind the door and cinched the tie. Then he dropped down toward the floor again to get a gulp of air. Retrieving the wet towels from the sink, he wrapped one around his head and the other around his hands and ran toward the door using the bag out in front to help block the heat. As he bolted through the flames he felt the hairs on his legs and forearms burn down to the skin and the soles of his boots melt into gel. He could smell the awful acrid smell of his own burning hair.

Cody prayed that whomever had set the fire hadn’t blocked the door so he couldn’t get out, then remembered it was unlikely since the door opened in. In the time it took him to run from the bathroom across the bedroom the heavy water in the towels heated up.

He hit the door hard with the saddlebag out in front of him to cushion the impact. He couldn’t see through the smoke but he reached around the bag for the handle. When he turned it the deadbolt rescinded and he threw himself out into the hallway. The rush of fresh air flowed into the room and fed the fire and the heat from it on his back and neck was instant and intense. Particularly, he felt it on his buttocks.

The hallway was empty except for the round bland face of a disoriented woman who’d just opened her door to peek out. Her eyes fixed above him at the roll of dark brown and yellow smoke that was advancing across the ceiling.

“Get out,” he said to her, “there’s a fire.”

“My things!” she said, her eyes welling with tears.

“Buy new ones,” he said, grasping her hand and pulling her out her door. “Is there anyone in there with you?”

“Sam!” she cried, and turned and tried to wrench her hand free.

Cody shouldered her aside and thumped into the room. Sam, who, like her, was in his midseventies, was sitting up in bed in a pair of boxers and a threadbare wife-beater, rubbing his face.

“Who are you?” Sam asked.

Cody didn’t take the time to answer, but jerked Sam to his feet and pushed him toward the door.

“Let’s get out of here,” he said, herding Sam and Mrs. Sam out ahead of him like stubborn steers. As they went down the hallway he slammed his fist on every door and wished he knew which ones were occupied and which ones were empty, but at each one he yelled, “Get the hell out now! The place is on fire!”

The three of them descended the stairs and were suddenly joined by guests from the other wing and Cody realized that the ringing in his head was from the fire alarms. The alarms bleated and emergency lights flashed in staccato everywhere. Overhead sprinklers suddenly hissed to life making flower-shaped showers that streamed down the walls and pattered on the carpets. The guests covered their heads against the water, and one woman said she was going back for her umbrella but her husband put a quick stop to that.

Cody was impressed by the lack of shouting or panic as barely clothed people of all ages streamed across the lobby. There were several sharp shouted curses, but most delivered by him.

As the people were herded toward the massive front doors, the hotel staff shouted and gestured for them to keep moving. From outside, sirens were whooping and Cody thought, Man, that was fast. Too fast. And he guessed whoever had lit up his room had called it in so there would be only one fatality.

In the river of guests headed toward the doors, under the interior lights that strobed in rhythm with the honking fire alarms, he searched for anyone who looked out of place. He didn’t remember kicking or seeing an empty can of lighter fluid in the hallway, so he searched the throng for anyone who might be holding a can or trying to hide one or someone fully clothed booking it toward a side exit. He saw no one that made his alarm bells go off.

He was outside in the instant chill before he thought to check out the hotel staff and emergency responders to see if one of them might be the guy who did it. There was already a fire truck in front of the hotel with firefighters pouring off it, and another coming down the drive.

When he turned to go back inside, a firefighter in heavy gear blocked his path and shooed him away. He dumped his pile of clothing and the remaining saddlebag.

“Let me back in,” Cody shouted at him, “I can help get people out.”

The firefighter, who had a wispy blond mustache and pale blue eyes under his helmet, said, “Now why would you want to do that? Now turn back around and go with the others. You’re blocking the door.”

“Let me by,” Cody said.

The firefighter shook his head. “Get back, sir. We’ve got this under control.”

Cody thought about guests who might have slept through the alarms who were now unable or unwilling to get out, and he thought of the burning bag of gear in his room.

“Let me in,” he said, trying to squeeze by the fireman in the doorway. “Look, I’m a cop. I can help in there.”

“Get with the others, now,” the fireman barked, inadvertently whacking Cody on his injured ear. The blow stunned him, froze him, the pain sharp and furious. His eyes teared again.

“Sorry,” the fireman said, “but I mean it. Get back with the others.”

The door filled with two other firefighters and a staggering night manager. Cody assumed they’d entered through the rear entrance, meaning there was another truck back there. The firemen were quizzing the manager: “Is that everyone? We need a count. We need to know if anyone’s still inside.”

The manager said, “I think so, I think so…”

“You better be right,” one of the firemen said.

The man who’d hit Cody gestured toward him, telling his colleagues, “This guy is a problem. He says he wants back in.”

Cody backed off.

He’d fought against his instinct to badge the guy and demand his way back in, but he remembered it had been taken away. And now that he was outside, he knew why his butt had felt the heat so much when he reached back and found the basketball-sized burned hole in his robe. He melded into the crowd, sidling around them so they wouldn’t look at his singed butt, and the more he thought about it the more he realized he was glad he hadn’t had access to his badge. He retrieved his clothing and the saddlebag and melded into the night.

20

“The water levels,” Jed said quickly in response to Tristan’s question. “I’ve been noticing every stream we’ve crossed is quite a bit higher than normal, almost like May or early June flows. The lake is higher than I’ve ever seen it this time of year as well. So if the water is high where we’re at, it’ll be a hell of a lot higher lower down in the Thorofare valley.”

Rachel Mina said, “Have you ever taken this new route before, Jed?”

Jed shook his head. “No, ma’am. We’ll be seeing and riding through country very few people have ever seen, including me. But according to my topo maps, the elevation rise isn’t much more severe than what we were going to do anyway, so I’m not worried about that. What I can’t guarantee is that we won’t have to stop from time to time and scout out ahead, which is something we haven’t had to do today. We’ll want to avoid black timber that may have trees down in it our horses can’t navigate through. And I’ll want to ride ahead from time to time to make sure we don’t get into a situation where we get rim-rocked.”

“Rim-rocked?” she asked.

“It means riding or climbing up into rocks and boulders but not being able to get back down,” he said.

“Great,” D’Amato said.

“But there’s an upside,” Jed said. “We may discover some thermal activity and see vistas and wildlife we’d never experience any other way. There are over ten thousand thermal features up here in this park, and who knows what we might find in the kind of virgin territory I’m talking about.”

“I’m from Brooklyn,” D’Amato said. “I do not know of this virgin territory.”

Which got a laugh out of Donna Glode, if no one else.

“The other thing,” Jed said, “is we’re likely to get to our next camp even earlier than the normal route, since we’re kind of cutting the corner. We might even discover a shortcut.

“Of course,” he said, “we don’t have to try this new route at all. We can stay on our trail and give it our best shot despite the mud and the potential of washouts. I just want you all to know there is an option available.”

He stopped talking. Jed knew one sure way of killing a sale was to oversell it. He wanted the group to come to their own consensus without him appearing to force it.

No one, it seemed, wanted to speak first.

Then Russell said, “We’d be like the Lewis and Clark Expedition. We’d be going through a part of Yellowstone Park practically no one has ever been through. That appeals to me, at least. I like being an explorer.”

D’Amato cracked in a bad pirate voice, “Beware, there be monsters.”

Knox said, “‘Back of back of beyond,’ we’ll call it. I like the sound of that.”

“Me too,” Donna Glode said. “Bring on the adventure!” She rubbed her hands together in what Jed thought was an overplay designed to show the Wall Streeters-D’Amato in particular-she was with them.

Walt said, “Is there still good fishing this new route?”

Jed said, “It looks like it, anyway. Those creeks I mentioned earlier, Phlox and Chipmunk, plus Badger Creek. One thing for sure, they haven’t been fished much. So you and Justin might be in for a rare treat-native cutthroat trout that’ve never seen an artificial fly.”

Walt nodded and smiled. “I like that idea,” he said.

“I think I’m in,” Sullivan said. “I think my girls would like the idea of seeing country no one has seen for a long time. I know I would. Go big or go home, I say.”

Jed noticed that Rachel Mina shot Sullivan an approving look.

Tristan stood up, and turned away from Jed to address the group. “I feel it’s my obligation to bring something up,” he said, the back of his shoulder to Jed. “What Jed is suggesting is kind of radical. We don’t have radios or cell phones. The only thing the Park Service knows about us-or our families at home-is where we’re supposed to be from day to day. So if we don’t show up at the end they know where to look. If we deviate from the trail and get lost or ‘rim-rocked,’ no one will know where to find us.”

Tristan said, “I’ve had a lot of success in my life by determining where I want to get to and staying the course. It’s when my partners convinced me to deviate from the plan that I failed. What Jed is suggesting here is trading in a sure thing-even though it might be unpleasant for a while-for a flier filled with unknown variables. I’d rather stay the course. It’s what I-and all of you-paid for.”

Even Jed conceded to himself Tristan was persuasive.

“Oh for Christ’s sake, Tristan,” Donna said, “didn’t you just hear him? You are such a tight-ass. This isn’t a product launch. I thought the purpose of this trip was for us to experience high adventure. Isn’t that what you said?”

Tristan didn’t answer her, but even in the firelight Jed could tell his face flushed red. She had embarrassed him, cut his feet out from under him. And his argument. Jed felt the momentum shift back.

“I’m in,” Knox said. “The worst that could happen is I never make it back to the firm to be at my desk when I get laid off.”

“Damn right,” Russell said. “Me, too.”

D’Amato covered his face with his hands as if horrified, then squeaked, “Me, three.”

Jed looked around. All in favor, one opposed, one not heard from.

“Mr. Wilson?” he asked, expecting it to go five-two.

Wilson said nothing, but his glare was intense.

Jed tried to read Wilson’s eyes, and what he saw was genuine surprise. As if he’d had his feet cut out from him, too. Finally, because all the attention had turned toward him, Wilson said, “That’s fine. I’ll go with the majority.”

Tristan looked around, and said, “I’ll have to decide tomorrow if we’ll even stay with this expedition.”

His words fell heavily, until Donna said, “Speak for yourself, kemosabe.”

Humiliated again, Tristan Glode stormed past Jed, headed for the tents. Over his shoulder, he said, “Democracy is no way to run a business, Jed. You’ll need to learn that.”

After a beat, Knox said, “I don’t think he likes losing arguments.”

“You think?” D’Amato said. “Man, what a buzz kill.”

“Welcome to my life,” Donna said, sliding across the ground toward D’Amato and taking the bottle of tequila from his hands.

Rachel Mina was curt: “Good night, everyone.” She strode away from the fire, followed by Sullivan.

“Okay then,” Jed said, taking the rest of his bottle from Walt, who’d gotten stuck with it. “We’ve got a decision. That means it’s going to be a real interesting day tomorrow, and we’ll be getting up early.”

“Interesting,” D’Amato said, repeating the word and getting up. “As if today was boring.”

“That’s what I like to hear,” Jed said, smiling.

Jed turned to the sound of Rachel and Sullivan arguing in the dark near the tents. He saw Dakota standing there, glaring at him. He wondered how much she’d heard.

That question was answered when she slowly shook her head, as if she couldn’t believe what was happening.

21

Framed by the pulsing wig-wag lights that painted the stone walls and arched windows of the front of the Gallatin Gateway Inn in vivid reds and blues, Cody Hoyt tossed the duffel he’d saved into the back of his Ford. He had trouble breathing due to the smoke inhalation and he coughed violently and spattered the back windows with globules of black sputum.

Behind him, guests gathered in knots in the front yard. The staff who’d helped evacuate them formed a perimeter with several firemen and now a few deputies who’d just arrived. Cody had slipped away while they all watched a bucket truck back across the lawn toward the hotel. He paused to take it all in before entering the Ford. His room on the second floor was easy to spot because of the bright orange glow of flames from inside. Several firefighters had climbed into the bucket and were now being raised toward the second level. When they were even with the orange window, the bucket paused and swayed a bit while a horizontal column of water blasted through the window. When the glass broke a ball of flame shot out of the frame accompanied by gasps from the guests on the lawn.

He noted the fire seemed to have stayed within his room and not spread to any others, no doubt due to the sprinkler system. Cody guessed it would be short work now to put it out and gain control of the building. It wouldn’t be long before the investigators figured out who had been staying in the room and would want to question him.

He swung inside the Ford and it was immediately filled with the acrid smell of the smoke from his clothes and hair. His bare skin stung from exposure to the fire, and when he brushed his forearm with his other hand the singed hair on it broke and fell off.

Thumping the steering wheel with the heel of his hand hard enough to crack the plastic, he cursed and spat and started the engine and rolled away.

The lights and sirens faded as he turned from the inn grounds onto U.S. 191 South. It didn’t take long before he was engulfed in darkness and safely away from the scene. He wheeled the Ford into a pullout and killed the engine.

Someone had found him and tried to burn him alive.

He found a half-full pack of cigarettes in the console and lit one. He inhaled deeply-smoke on smoke-then coughed. Jesus, he thought, it was like he was trying to burn himself up from the inside out. He tossed the cigarette out onto the gravel.

There was a bright side to the fire, he thought. Now he knew he was on the right track, because someone was trying to kill him.

The more he thought about what had happened and what had almost happened, the more his skewed world tilted even farther off plumb.

He was glad he hadn’t gone cop on the fireman or spoken to anyone on his way out, even though possibly they could have found whoever did it through the process of elimination. But his story would sound preposterous at first, he realized. The firefighters would quickly discover he’d dismantled his smoke detector and they’d find the small mountain of cigarette butts in his room. The conclusion they’d reach immediately was he was smoking in bed and started the fire and had come up with a story about lighter fluid to cover himself. Or they’d accuse him of accidentally-or intentionally-spilling the accelerant on the floor and it went up. Hell, he thought, given the facts on the ground he’d come to the same conclusion. Within minutes they’d have his ID and call it in, discover who he was and where he was supposed to be, and he’d likely spend the rest of the night in the Bozeman jail waiting for a Helena deputy to come get him and take him back. No doubt the damage to the hotel caused by the fire and water would cost millions to repair. He thanked God all the guests had been accounted for, or there would be a murder charge as well.

He couldn’t risk that.

Since the attempted method of getting rid of him had been fire, he wondered if the murderer he was tracking wasn’t on the pack trip after all, but had stayed around Bozeman. But how would the killer know he was in town, or what he was up to? And how could he possibly know he was spending the night at the Gallatin Gateway Inn, or which room? It made no sense.

Did this mean he was next on the killer’s list? Cody dismissed it, since the other victims had been clean and sober for years and he hadn’t. Unless, of course, the killer knew Cody was getting close and had decided to try a preemptive strike.

In many ways, Cody thought, the crime could have been almost perfect. The flames had moved so fast that if he hadn’t been awake at the time the match was struck, he might have been incinerated in the bed. A little digging would bring forth stories of the recent incident with the coroner in Helena, his suspension from the Denver Police Department a year ago, and his infamous alcohol-related binges.

Which meant that whoever had done it knew him well enough to know they might get away with it.

He thought about the few people he’d been in contact with who knew where he was or what he was doing. Larry, obviously, but he’d withheld crucial info from him, like his location.

Cody retraced his steps that day. Other than Cooper and the Mitchells, he’d encountered a half-dozen sales people and the hotel staff. There had also been the state trooper and the mechanic in Townsend. While each may have known a very small piece of what he was up to, no one could have realistically put it all together, he thought.

This was the kind of puzzle he liked to bounce off his partner, because the two of them could usually brainstorm their way to a plausible answer.

His cell phone had a good signal and he scrolled through his contacts until he found Larry’s home phone, but something stopped him before he speed-dialed. He sat in silence, staring at the lit screen, then closed the phone and turned it off. He opened the driver’s door and let the phone drop to the gravel, then smashed it into pieces with the heel of his boot.

Whether they’d followed him from Helena or called ahead he wasn’t sure. If they were keeping tabs on him through the GPS embedded in his cell, that would be the end of that.

Then it hit him with a force that took his breath away.

The stop in Townsend, the overnight there that slowed him down. The long delay that held him in place until tonight. Had the trooper been tipped to keep an eye out for him?

He climbed back into the Ford and covered his face with his hands. Only two people could possibly know the entire story, every part of it. Only two people knew where he was going, why he was going there, and what he planned to do.

One of them was the killer. The other…

He said aloud, “Larry, you treacherous son of a bitch. Why?”

22

By the light of a headlamp, Jed McCarthy stripped down to his T-shirt and underwear in his tent and jammed his outside clothing into a stuff sack he’d use for a pillow, then checked his watch. Getting late. Dakota should be back any second.

He’d left some clients at the fire. Two of the three Wall Streeters were still there, Knox and D’Amato. So was Donna Glode. And K. W. Wilson. Ted Sullivan had left a half hour after he had words with Rachel Mina, saying, “Better go try to patch things up.” Walt Franck had also gone to his tent.

His tooled leather business backpack was stored where it always was, near the head of the tent. He retrieved it and unzipped the front flap, then reached down through his files, canisters of bear spray, the new portable GPS unit, and his loaded.44 Magnum secured in an Uncle Mike’s Cordura holster by an interior zipper that was hidden by design. The light from his headlamp bobbed around while he did it. He kept his ears open for Dakota’s boots swishing through the tall grass toward the tent.

He withdrew a thin brown envelope made stiff by the eight-and-a-half-by-twelve-inch piece of cardboard inside and dumped the contents on the top of his sleeping bag. Newspaper clippings, GPS coordinates, and most important, the Google Earth maps he’d printed off on high-grade photographic paper while Margaret Cooper was choking back tears out in the reception area as she read (out loud) the instructions on how to operate Windows Vista. She’d had no idea what he was doing.

The photographic images were precise. He found the location of Camp One, where they were now, and traced the trail south along the shoreline of the lake with the tip of his finger. He reviewed the place he’d marked with an X at the natural junction where they’d cut west toward Two Ocean Plateau as he described it to his clients around the campfire. Although the terrain and the creeks were burned into his memory from endless hours with the maps, he wanted to reassure himself for the hundredth time that it looked passable, that he could lead the group up and away from the Thorofare on terrain they could handle, that the horses and mules could navigate.

He hoped the new route from the Thorofare to Two Ocean was as clear and unencumbered as the photographs showed. He wished he knew how old the images Google had posted were. If they were a couple of years old, he prayed there’d been no severe timber blowdowns or microbursts in the meanwhile. In the back of his mind was his memory of seeing an entire mountainside in Yellowstone leveled by a nighttime weather phenomenon that scattered hundreds of acres of lodgepole pines like so many pick-up sticks. No one had seen it happen, and the Park Service, being the Park Service, refused to acknowledge that it did. But Yellowstone was a world of its own, as Jed knew better than anyone, and the physical landscape could change literally overnight as geysers shot through the thin crust or earthquakes rattled the ground or unspeakably violent storms blew through. Fires would be okay because they’d help open up the undergrowth, and he knew there had been a dozen lightning-caused blazes in the area the previous fall.

But he knew that no matter how carefully he’d planned things they’d never go exactly right in Yellowstone. The place seemed designed to foil human plans and aspirations. Conditions within the Yellowstone ecosystem were ramped up and exaggerated compared to the world around it. Every natural phenomenon-storms, fires, temperatures, thermal activity, wildlife, geography, weather in general-always seemed pushed to extremes. The more time he spent in the park the smaller he felt, and the less in control of the world around him. All he could do at times was point himself in the general direction of where he wanted to go-both figuratively and literally-and hope he’d get there. He remembered Bull Mitchell telling him something like that when he bought his company, but Jed discounted the statement and credited Bull’s advancing age. Now he knew it to be true.

He jumped when Dakota suddenly entered the tent. He hadn’t heard her coming, and she hadn’t signaled him in any way like she sometimes did with a whistle or a finger-drum on the taut tent wall. It was simple camp etiquette to do so and he’d taught her that. She’d disregarded it, though, and he scrambled to stuff the maps back into the envelope before she saw what he was doing.

She winced when he looked up at her and shined his headlamp directly into her eyes, pretending it was inadvertent.

“Jeez, Jed,” she said, waving her hand at him, “you’re blinding me.”

“Sorry.”

“I bet.”

Once the papers were back in the envelope and the envelope slipped under his sleeping bag, he turned his head and the beam of light. That was too close, he thought.

She didn’t unzip her jacket or remove her boots, but sat Indian style on the foot of her sleeping bag.

He pulled the headlamp off and hung it from a loop so the light hit the inside tent wall and was diffused. “Horses okay?” he asked.

“Yup.”

“Food hung up?”

She nodded.

“Kitchen wiped down and locked up?”

“Like always,” she said.

“Anyone left at the camp?”

Dakota said, “Donna Glode is still there with Tony D’Amato and James Knox. Knox is trying to protect his friend from her, I guess.”

“Donna will be easy to track if she gets lost,” Jed said. “We’ll just have to follow the cougar tracks.”

Dakota didn’t even smile as she fixed her eyes on him. “Jed, what the fuck is going on?”

“Keep your voice down,” Jed said. Even though their tent was two hundred yards from the other tents and closer to the horses than the camp itself, he always worried about being overheard by any guests, since the topic of conversation was generally them.

Her eyes blazed in the semidarkness. “You’re breaking every damn rule you’ve ever told me about,” she said. “You’ve got something going on here or else you’ve just lost your damn mind.”

He started to speak but she cut him off.

“Never leave the guests to tend the fire at night,” she said. She lowered her voice and added a low drawl to mimic his cadence as much as possible. “Gently encourage the guests to take their socializing to the tents and wait them out if necessary so you can secure the camp and make sure there’s no food or anything around to draw animals in, then put the fire out with water. Then do a walk-around to double-check the night checklist. Last, make sure the animals are fine.”

He hated when she mocked him.

Which didn’t stop her. She said, “Never encourage alcohol consumption. We may want a nightcap of our own in the tent before we turn in, Dakota, but never drink in front of the clients or encourage them to do so.

“Never antagonize a paying guest and promote rancor among the group, Dakota,” she said. “Be the facilitator to smooth out any disagreements. Be on everyone’s side, or lead them to think you are. Be a benevolent dictator, but more the former than the latter. The whole experience gets poisoned if resentment is left to linger.”

He held up a hand to interrupt her but she was on a roll.

“Never fraternize with the guests until the last night, Dakota. Keep a professional distance so they respect you. You are the captain of the ship. Maintain a little mystery about you, so they’ll listen when you tell them something. Be professional at all times. Don’t become one of them, Dakota. Never let your guard down to the clients, Dakota,” she said, angry.

Then she leaned forward and backhanded him on his shoulder. Before he could react, she said, “So what do you do, you hand them a bottle! Then you sit with them and get them all stirred up about taking a new route. And what is this about water levels bein’ up so we can’t stay on the trail, Jed? Where in the hell did that come from?”

He sat back and glared at her although he was a little taken aback. “Keep your voice down,” he said through clenched teeth. “And where do you get off talking to me like that?”

“I’m using your own words,” she said.

He said, “This is my trip and my company. I’ve been keeping a close eye on the creeks we crossed and the level of the lake all day while you emptied your head and tugged your mules along. You would have seen the same thing I did if you’d been looking. And keep the hell in mind I don’t need to clear every decision with you. Keep the hell in mind this is my outfit and my risk and you’re the hired help.”

She reacted as if he’d slapped her. She said in her own voice, “Is that all I am to you?”

He was sorry he said it because he still needed her. But he didn’t take it back. He could tell she was trying not to tear up. No matter how tough she talked or acted, he thought, she was still just a damned girl.

He knew what her next move would be. Furiously, she started clawing at her sleeping bag, gathering it into a ball she could carry away.

This wasn’t their first fight, but he sensed the cold edge of finality creeping in unless he headed it off.

“You can still sleep here,” he said calmly.

“Bullshit,” she hissed, backing away on her hands and knees toward the door of the tent. “You can sleep alone. I don’t even want to breathe the same air as you tonight.”

It was the word tonight that made his shoulders relax and his stomach unclench. Tonight meant she didn’t consider the rift permanent.

He chuckled, then said, “Do whatever you have to do, darlin’. Just don’t let any of the guests see you.”

“Fuck you, Jed.”

He quickly sat up and reached over and cupped her chin in his palm, forcing her to stop and look at him. “Don’t escalate things out of proportion,” he said. “I know what I’m doing. Trust me a little bit.”

“Why should I?” she said, but he knew she was softening.

“Have I steered us wrong before?”

She paused, then said, “Not much up to now.”

He laughed, and felt the tension in her dissipate a little. He said, “Before you go, did you complete your job tonight?”

He knew her slavish obligation to her duties would further override her anger. She was like that.

Dakota jerked her face away from his hand, sat back on her haunches, and dug into her coat pocket. He figured she was as angry now at her own caving in as she was at him.

She threw a handful of cartridges in his lap. They landed heavily and he picked one up. He said, “Three-fifty-seven Magnum. Did you find any more? A box of shells?”

She shook her head.

“And you left the gun, of course,” he said. “So he might not even know you unloaded it.”

She just glared at him.

Wilson would be in a dilemma, now, Jed knew. If the man asked who took the bullets, he’d be admitting he brought a firearm on the trip. It had happened before, and in every case the guest never said a word afterward.

“You don’t have to leave,” Jed said. “It’s cold out there.”

But she’d committed herself and although there was a hint of doubt on her face, he knew she’d go.

“Come back in if you get cold,” he said.

She grunted the curse at him again as she backed out through the door trailing her sleeping bag and pad. Before disappearing into the night, though, she paused and looked in.

“I nearly forgot,” she said. “He also has a satellite phone.”

Jed’s eyes widened. “He does?”

Her mouth curled into a sneer. “And he’s got a file folder filled with aerial photos,” she said, “just like those ones you tried to hide from me when I came in.”

And she was gone.

Oh shit, Jed thought. This I didn’t expect.

Gracie didn’t know what time it was during the night when she snapped awake at the sound of blows or thumping footfalls outside the tent, or heard what she thought must be the grunting of a bear. Or a man or woman being wordlessly beaten.