Back of Beyond

23

Gracie was late to breakfast. She’d barely slept until the last few hours as the tent walls fused with morning sun, and when she finally awoke she was sweating in her sleeping bag and Danielle was already gone.

She stood and stretched and yawned. Her face felt dirty and her hair was matted to the side and took furious brushing to set right. Danielle’s sleeping bag was crumpled and puffy on the pad. She vaguely remembered her sister cursing and grunting as she pulled her clothes on earlier.

Outside the tent, it was cold, still, clear, and breathtakingly beautiful. Bright white sun danced on the ripples of Yellowstone Lake and electrified the dew in the grass. A bald eagle cruised along the surface of the water, talons dropped, fishing. Far across the water was the smudge of an island in the lake. Boils of steam rose from vents and dissipated in the clear morning air. She smelled woodsmoke from the fire and heard subdued voices from the kitchen camp.

Her father stood on the path between her and the morning fire, hands in the pockets of his jacket, head down, feet set on opposite sides of the path as if blocking it.

She thought, Ambush.

As she walked out into the wet grass to go around him, he said, “Gracie, please. We have to talk.”

“Nothing to talk about.”

“I didn’t like how things developed last night,” he said. “I don’t like to see you go to bed angry with me.”

She snorted and rolled her eyes and passed him. He fell in behind her, speaking low so he wouldn’t draw the attention of the group already eating breakfast.

“I wanted you and Danielle to get to know her, get to like her,” he said. “I wanted you two to get comfortable with the idea of us together. I wanted you to want us to be together, for me to be happy and for us to be happy. I guess what I’m saying, Gracie, is I want your blessing.”

She stopped and turned around. He was right behind her. She said, “You use words girls use when they talk to each other. If I want to talk to girls I’ll talk to girls, not my dad. If you want to be with Rachel then tell me and be with her. I’m fourteen years old. I don’t give blessings. You’re the dad, be the dad,” she said. “And man up. That’s all I ask.”

She left him there with his mouth open but no sound coming out.

She expected chiding for being late but no one said a thing and she realized the moment she stepped into the campfire ring that something was seriously wrong. All she received were brief and furtive glances. She felt as though she’d just blundered into the middle of an argument and stopped it cold.

Danielle sat with Justin on the same log they’d occupied the night before. Walt sat near them, as did Rachel Mina, who eyed her coolly. The Wall Streeters stood and held their plates aloft, as if they had an appointment to keep. The menu was scrambled eggs, bacon, hash browns, toast, and coffee. Although the food looked and smelled good, no one appeared to be really eating it. Donna Glode sat alone. She looked pale and sick. Strands of her hair fell into her face and the food on her plate was untouched. She stared at the fire although the flames were hard to see in the morning light.

Who was missing?

Jed, who was behind the kitchen station, said, “Hey, girl, come over here and get some breakfast. Get your dad to come eat, too.”

She looked around for Dakota but couldn’t locate her.

Dumbly, Gracie started to go get her dad but he’d joined her. He looked under his brow at her, as if trying to transmit a message.

They got tin plates and eating utensils. She glanced over her shoulder at the others.

She said, “Where is Mr. Glode and that guy Wilson? Where’s Dakota?”

Her dad said, “I think that’s what everyone was discussing when you walked up.”

Jed gave her a scoop of eggs and three strips of bacon. He said, “I sent Dakota back on the trail to find a couple of strays.”

Gracie waited for a further explanation, but Jed ignored her. He was studying the others around the campfire with an almost scary intensity, she thought.

Gracie sat by Danielle and her sister reached over and patted her on the shoulder, as if touching base. It was an unusual and warm gesture, Gracie thought.

She listened in. Tristan Glode and K. W. Wilson hadn’t come to breakfast because they were gone. Their things had been cleared out of their tents and both of their horses were missing.

“No,” Jed said to answer a question from James Knox, “I can’t say it’s ever happened before. I’ve had the few rare unhappy customers, but I’ve never had any who up and went home. Especially on my horses.”

“I don’t see them sneaking away together,” Walt said, to snickers from Knox and Drey Russell.

Jed said, “I wish they would have talked to me about it. Being on your own in Yellowstone is dangerous.”

Gracie found herself watching Donna Glode, seeing what kind of impact the speculation was having on her. After all, her husband had left her. But she didn’t look distraught, Gracie thought. She looked guilty.

This was confirmed when Danielle leaned over and whispered in her ear, “She didn’t spend the night in her tent with him.”

Gracie nodded slightly to indicate she’d heard but didn’t give her sister away by looking at her or responding. Gracie noted how Donna glanced repeatedly at D’Amato, hoping, no doubt, he’d share a wink back. As far as she could tell, D’Amato pointedly didn’t turn his head toward Donna. And he seemed much more inhibited than he’d been so far. In fact, he looked ashamed, like a little boy. His two friends shot glances at him while they ate as if seeing him in a new light.

Walt said, “Do you think Dakota will find them and talk them into coming back?”

Jed said he hoped so. He looked stricken as well, Gracie thought. Maybe a little unsure of himself, for the first time. Like he had too much swirling around in his head. “I wish we knew when they left,” Jed said.

That’s when Gracie said, “I heard something last night. Am I the only one who did?”

She was. With Rachel observing her very carefully, her dad asked what she’d heard.

“It’s hard to describe,” she said. “I heard some feet thumping around outside and a kind of grunt, like someone got the wind knocked out of them. I didn’t recognize anyone or hear any voices, just the thumping and the grunt. I thought it might have been an animal in the camp.”

Her dad said, “Why didn’t you wake me up and tell me?”

Gracie looked over, her eyes dead. “I wasn’t sure whose tent you were in.”

“Meow,” Danielle whispered.

Her dad turned red and looked quickly away. Gracie felt both good and ashamed at the same time. She expected a glare from Rachel, but the woman eyed her stoically. As if assessing her for later.

“What time did you hear it?” Jed asked, ignoring the others.

Gracie shrugged, and chewed on a piece of bacon.

“I mean,” Jed said, “was it right after you went to bed or was it closer to this morning?”

“A few hours after I went to bed,” she said. “After midnight, I’m sure. I didn’t look at my watch, but I’d guess two or three in the morning.”

Jed nodded to himself, as if fitting this new information into a narrative.

“So they could have five or so hours on us,” Knox said. “I don’t see the point in going after them, then. By the time we caught up to them they’d be at the parking lot.”

“Maybe,” Jed said, worried. “But they might not have gotten that far while it was dark.”

“I still don’t see the two of them together,” Walt said. “I’d guess they’re traveling separately in the same direction.”

Russell said, “Fools. On their own they might get lost.”

D’Amato cleared his throat. “I volunteer to go after them. After all, it’s my fault…” He didn’t finish the sentence.

“You’re not going anywhere on your own,” Knox said flatly.

“They’ll be okay,” Russell said. “It’s their deal, not ours. It was their choice to leave.”

Jed nodded and addressed his comments to Donna. “I don’t think they’ll get lost or anything. Hell, the trail just parallels the shore of the lake nearly all the way back. There are a few side trails, but they’d follow our tracks from yesterday. I’m sure Dakota will find them. That girl can ride.”

Walt said, “It just doesn’t make sense to me. Just because there was a disagreement on which trail to take-it just doesn’t make sense.”

Gracie’s dad agreed. Rachel said nothing.

Donna Glode said to the fire, “You don’t understand. Tristan is all about control. And last night he lost it.” She looked over at D’Amato. “You’re not the reason he left. I’m the reason he left.”

D’Amato stared at his boots, still pointedly ignoring her. No one followed up with a reguest to Donna for clarification.

“But why Wilson?” Rachel Mina asked. “Why did he leave? He didn’t seem that concerned about the vote or which trail we are going to take.”

“Who knows about that guy,” Walt said. “He was a hard guy to read.”

Knox agreed. “It doesn’t break me up too damn much that guy’s gone. He seemed kind of strange from the start, I thought.”

“Hear, hear,” Russell said.

“Tristan is another matter,” D’Amato said, as much to himself as anyone. “I think maybe it would be a good effort on my part to go try and get him. I want to do this. I want to make things right.”

“Forget it,” Donna said, ending the discussion. “He won’t listen to you, of all people. And he’s never listened to me.”

She stood and turned to Jed. “I know exactly what he’ll do, so you might as well prepare for it. He’ll go straight to the top, to the superintendent of the park, and demand that your license be taken away for deviating from the scheduled trip. And I would be surprised if he didn’t get his way. That’s the way he is.”

It was only for a second, but Gracie thought she saw real fear in Jed’s eyes.

“Dakota will find him,” Jed said, assuring no one.

Gracie found the whole scene fascinating and a little sickening. There was no filtering of words or emotions for the sake of Danielle, Justin, or her. She felt suddenly older and more mature but she didn’t like the feeling.

Jed said to Gracie, “What you probably heard last night was one or both of them clearing out their tents to leave. Maybe one of them tripped on a tent stake or something.”

Gracie shook her head. “I don’t think it was that.”

“Then what was it?” her dad asked, suddenly perturbed. “If you can’t say what you heard, maybe you shouldn’t say anything at all.”

Gracie felt her face flush. She knew his anger had more to do with her snub of him than anything else. She said softly, “It sounded more like a fight.”

No one said anything. The silence around the fire became oppressive.

Finally, Jed said, “I don’t see much sense in discussing this any further. It’s time to eat up, pack up, and mount up. We’re burning daylight, folks.”

The sound of hoofbeats filled the awkward silence, and everyone turned toward the sound.

Dakota rode up and reined to a stop. She was alone.

“I couldn’t catch them,” she said.

Gracie looked up to see Jed glaring at Dakota, his hands knotted into fists at his side.

Dakota didn’t meet his eyes.

Gracie walked with Danielle back toward the tents. When they were far enough away from the adults, Danielle said, “Fuck this. This trip sucks. Why couldn’t we go to Mexico or a beach or something?”

Gracie shrugged.

Danielle said, “Who cares if those two guys are gone or what trail we take? It’s just stupid. I’m glad that creep Wilson is gone anyway, so he won’t be sneaking around trying to look at me when I go to the so-called toilet. And I want to take a hot shower.”

“What do you think about Dad and Rachel?”

“I guess I would have liked to have known about it before we did this,” her sister said. “But Dad needs to get a life. This might help. Maybe he won’t be so clueless and intense all the time.”

“That’s all you think about it?”

Danielle shrugged. “She seems kind of cool. I don’t have anything against her.”

“I don’t know her well enough to say,” Gracie said.

Danielle said, “What I think is if the rules of this trip are everybody sleeps around with everybody else, then they ought to just say so and I’ll stay with Justin. He can rub my back and tell me how beautiful I am and we’ll see what develops.”

Gracie sighed and unzipped their tent so they could repack their things for the day’s ride. As she did she saw Rachel Mina come out of a green and blue tent with her sleeping bag bundled in her arms. Gracie thought she looked angry and puzzled, as if trying to struggle through a difficult problem. Then their eyes locked for a moment and Rachel’s face softened and changed. Rachel took a deep breath, blew a strand of hair out of her face as if she’d just made a momentous decision, and let her sleeping bag drop to a pile at her feet.

“Uh-oh,” Gracie said.

“What?”

“She’s coming over.”

“Who?” Danielle asked, then saw Rachel working her way through the other tents toward them. “Oh, her.”

Gracie looked around. There was nowhere to run.

“Hello, Danielle,” Rachel said. “Hello, Gracie.”

“Hi,” Danielle said. Gracie stood and nodded.

“We haven’t officially met,” Rachel said, looking from one sister to the other and extending her hand. “I’m Rachel.”

They shook her hand.

Rachel said, “I wanted to take this opportunity, since we’re away from everyone, to set the record straight regarding your dad and me.”

Gracie braced for it.

“I want you to know something,” Rachel said, talking mainly to her. “I don’t want to be your stepmother. I don’t necessarily want to be your best friend. But I want to get along with you and I hope you’ll give it a shot to get along with me. We all know the situation, even though the truth came out much more awkwardly than I wanted it to.

“I’m very, very fond of your father. I know he feels the same about me. We’re both lonely, and there’s a very good possibility we’ll be together in the future. That’s where you two come in.”

“Hey,” Danielle said, “as long as you don’t try to run my life, I’m okay with it.”

Rachel still spoke primarily to Gracie. “I’ve been around the block. I don’t try to pretend your father is young, single, and carefree. I know he’s got a family. And I know he absolutely adores you two girls. This isn’t an either/or situation unless we make it such,” she said. “Do you understand what I’m saying?”

Gracie said, “I’m not sure I do.”

Rachel said, “You two are the most important people in his life. I recognize that fact and I admire it and I’d never try to change it. If we can’t accept each other and get along, I’ll step aside. I won’t force him to make a choice and he doesn’t need to. Most men are trying to do the right thing but they don’t know how. That I’ve learned. They don’t understand what we want and need and expect. They assume we think love is a zero-sum game-either he goes with you or he goes with me-which it isn’t. I know he’s attracted to me, and I to him. I could draw a line in the sand. But I won’t, because then I’d be with a man I don’t respect and you’d have a dad you resented. What I’m saying,” she continued, “is we’re not rivals. Not either/or. You’ve already got a mother and from what I understand she’s a wonderful woman. I look forward to meeting her as well. I don’t plan on disliking her or resenting her.”

Gracie said, “You talk to us like we’re adults.”

Rachel said, “And I plan to continue to do that. I’m too old to start playing games, and this…” she waved her hand over her head to indicate the situation they were in that morning, “is an incredible distraction. If we don’t talk now and talk bluntly, who knows when we’ll get the chance?”

Danielle said, “Hey, I’m here, too,” attempting to break up the two-way conversation.

“You are,” Rachel said. “And I’m sorry. I just had the impression you weren’t the one I’d need to convince.”

Danielle started to argue, then rolled her eyes and said, “I’m not, I guess.”

Rachel turned back to Gracie. “And what about you?”

Gracie hesitated and felt her sister and Rachel Mina looking at her. She said, “I need to think about it.”

“Gawd,” Danielle sighed. “Gracie, you are such a little-”

“No,” Rachel said, holding up her hand to silence Danielle, which impressed Gracie because it actually worked, “that’s perfectly fair. I’d probably say the same thing.”

And with that, she turned and went back to her tent to pack up.

Gracie and Danielle watched her in silence until she was out of earshot.

Danielle said, “I have to admit, that was pretty cool. I like her, even though I still don’t see what she sees in Dad. I mean, I could live with her around, I think.”

Gracie nodded, although she wasn’t yet ready to agree. She didn’t want Danielle to think Rachel had won her over so quickly, even though she nearly conceded to herself she had.

Danielle giggled. “I was kind of hoping she would have said she did want to be our best friend, though. That’s the way you get stuff, you know? There’s nothing better for a girl than to have two sets of parents competing for your affection, and buying you things to make you like them more, you know?”

Gracie looked at her sister with disgust. “What planet are you from, anyway?”

“Planet Danielle,” her sister said with a lilt. “It’s a good and happy place. And it has hot showers and cell phone service.”

Jed waited until everyone had dispersed before tracking down Dakota, who was picketing her horse with the others. His voice was tight and low. He said, “Why in the hell didn’t you keep going until you found them? Do you know what this might mean?”

She slid the saddle and pad off, leaving a sweaty matted square on her horse’s back. “No, what does it mean?”

He reached out and grasped her shoulder, preventing her from turning away from him. “It means he’ll go to the Park Service, that’s what it means. I could lose my contract, is what it means. Why didn’t you track him down? Why did you quit on me before you found him?”

She broke eye contact and let her gaze slip to his hand on her shoulder. She wouldn’t speak until he let go, so he did.

Dakota said, “I lost them, Jed. I followed their tracks for two miles and then the tracks just vanished. I can’t figure out why they left the trail or where they went. I rode another half mile to see if they got back on the trail, but they didn’t. I don’t know where they are, but I didn’t want to say that in front of our clients.”

Jed shook his head. “They just disappeared?”

She nodded defiantly.

Jed felt a weight lift. If Tristan and Wilson had wandered away from the route they might never get back to the trailhead.

“Should we notify Search and Rescue?” Dakota asked.

“No,” Jed said. “Not yet. Those two might realize the error of their ways and come back yet.”

He ignored the puzzlement in her face.

While they were packing, Gracie asked, “Did you hear anything last night?”

“No. I had a bad dream about something, but I forget now what it was about.”

“So maybe you heard what I heard.”

“I don’t know,” Danielle said. “Maybe. But who cares? He’s great, isn’t he? Justin, I mean.”

“You think they’re all great at first. This one is, but I’m sure you’ll screw it up somehow.”

“Shut up.”

Gracie cinched her sleeping bag stuff sack and started to carry it and her duffel toward the horses. On the way, she stepped off the path into the moist grass and bent down. The sod was churned up in several places exposing soft black soil. She looked up at her tent, which was twenty yards away. “This is where it happened,” she said to Danielle. “This is where the noises came from. Nobody tripped on a tent stake. It’s too far away from the tents.”

Danielle stayed on the path. She looked from Gracie back toward the camp. The adults were still milling around.

“So what are you saying?” she asked.

Gracie said, “I’m not sure. But there’s something really wrong going on. Something evil. Two grown men supposedly just left us in the middle of the night without a word to anyone. We’re supposed to believe that two guys who’ve known each other for a day get together and make a plan like that? Why didn’t anyone hear them or notice they were taking two horses? And did you see the way Jed and Dakota were treating each other? Or how Donna Glode and Tony D’Amato are acting?”

“I didn’t notice.”

“I know you didn’t. And why the big deal about taking another trail?” Gracie said. “We wouldn’t know what trail we’re on, anyway. Why does that matter?”

24

Cody Hoyt rode a tall gelding paint named Gipper behind Bull Mitchell’s black horse through a dark stand of lodgepole pine trees that seemed to have no end, on a trail that was so overgrown it barely existed anymore, and he called to Mitchell, “Are you sure you know where we’re going?”

It was mid-morning and up beyond the interlaced canopy of trees the sun was out and the sky was intense blue and cloudless. They’d been riding for four hours straight without a break and Cody felt quarter-sized spots on both inner thighs burn through his jeans into his flesh from leather ridges on the saddle. He knew little about horses except he’d never much liked them and he had the distinct impression Gipper thought the same about him, evidenced by the way the horse would drift off the path toward overhanging branches that, if Cody wasn’t alert, would have knocked him backwards out of the saddle to the ground.

It was still moist in the trees from a brief rain shower that came at dawn as they set out, and raindrops clung like tears to the tips of pine needles. Occasionally, there was a break in the canopy and light streamed through like jail bars. But mostly they’d been in the shadows on a trail that barely was and Bull Mitchell hadn’t said three words to Cody although the old man mumbled plenty to his horse. Mitchell trailed a packhorse with full canvas panniers and Cody rode his gelding behind them both.

Cody inventoried their weapons. Both he and Mitchell had rifle scabbards lashed onto their saddles. The scarred and faded wooden butt of a scoped.30-06 stuck out of Mitchell’s scabbard and a black polymer adjustable butt stock for a departmental AR-15 poked out of Cody’s. Mitchell’s rifle looked substantial and serious, Cody thought, while his high-tech semiautomatic rifle resembled a kind of toy. He’d switched out the thirty-round for a ten-round magazine so the rifle would slip into the creaky leather sleeve that simply wasn’t designed for it. Cody’s.40 Sig Sauer was clipped high on his belt, making the weapon difficult to get at but at least it didn’t rub along the saddle. Mitchell had strapped on a long-barreled.44 Magnum single-action Ruger Super Blackhawk revolver. Like his rifle, Mitchell’s handgun was rubbed nearly clean of blueing and the wooden handgrip was worn and scratched. He wore the.44 Magnum in a holster that covered most of his thigh. It was a bear weapon.

“I said,” Cody repeated, “are you sure you know where we’re going?” Mitchell pulled his horse to an abrupt stop, which caused the packhorse to do the same. Gipper used the occasion to stop, dip his head, and eat grass.

“I heard you the first time,” Mitchell growled. His voice was so deep it seemed to vibrate through the ground. He sounded annoyed.

“Well?”

“What do you think?” Mitchell said.

“I think we’ve been riding in these trees for a long time and even I can see we’re the first people to use this trail in years,” Cody said. “So it’s a little hard for me to believe we’re going to catch them on it.”

Mitchell shook his head as he looked away, as if deeply disappointed.

“What?” Cody asked.

“I got a question for you,” Mitchell said, turning his horse around so he could glare at Cody and leaning forward in his saddle with both of his huge hands on the horn. Cody had learned from his Montana outfitter uncles that true horsemen-unlike himself-would rather turn their mounts around than turn their heads. “Why the hell did you hire me if you’re going to question every damn thing I do?”

Cody shifted his weight, trying to find a position in the saddle that eased the burns. “It’s just this trail we’re on. It’s obvious it hasn’t been used in years and there are places I can’t even tell it’s there. So naturally I-”

“Naturally you start yapping at me,” Mitchell said basso profundo, “when you should be keeping quiet.”

“I want to know what’s going on. You can’t expect me to just sit here for hours wondering where we’re going.”

Mitchell reached up and tilted his cowboy hat back and rubbed his forehead. “I thought you wanted to catch them,” he said.

“I do.”

“Then the only way we’re going to do it in a timely fashion is to ride cross-country and cut all the corners. We should intercept the main trail by early this afternoon. They’ll still have about half a day on us but with all those rookie riders and trail horses, we’ll make up plenty of time.”

Cody nodded. “Thank you for that. All you needed to tell me was you knew where you were going and you had a plan.”

Mitchell shook his head again.

Cody said, “All you had to tell me was you were familiar with this sort-of trail we’re on and that it will eventually run into the main trail where Jed is.”

Mitchell said, “I ain’t never been on this trail in my life.”

With that, he grinned crookedly and turned his horse back around and clicked his tongue to get him moving again.

Cody moaned and patted his shirt for his cigarettes.

Cody and Bull Mitchell had approached Yellowstone Park from the northwest in the dark pulling a beat-up horse trailer. They’d hidden Cody’s Ford in an empty outbuilding at Jed McCarthy’s compound and transferred his gear to Bull Mitchell’s rig. Mitchell drove a dented F-250 pickup and sipped from a plastic go cup of coffee, and Cody tried to get some sleep since he hadn’t gotten any the night before. Every time he closed his eyes his mind swirled with Technicolor visions of cabins burning down, hotels burning up, conspiracy, and betrayal.

He’d finally dozed for a few minutes when he was jolted awake by a violent pitching of the truck. When he opened his eyes and reached out for the dashboard to find out what had happened, he saw they’d turned off the highway onto an ancient two-track that skirted a dark river and vanished ahead in a bank of dark timber.

“What’s this?” he’d asked, groggy.

“Old Indian trick,” Mitchell said.

“What the hell does that mean?”

“Means we sure as hell can’t drive through the gate at the park and explain to the ranger who you are and why we’re bringing horses in without taillights, so we’re sneaking in through a back door.”

Mitchell gestured vaguely ahead in the dark. “This is an old fire and service road nobody’s supposed to know about. It’s from the old days when the Park Service actually provided service and put out fires, so we’re talking a really long time ago. We can get pretty deep into the park without anyone knowing we’re here.”

Then Mitchell added, “I hope. They might have blocked it off.”

Cody asked, “How long has it been since you were on it?”

Mitchell shrugged and sipped at his coffee. “Seven, eight years,” he said. “Maybe more.”

“Jesus,” Cody said. “What if it’s blocked?”

“We’ll figure something out,” Mitchell said, and shrugged. “Always do. I got a chain saw in the back in case we need to cut trees and a winch on the front in case we get stuck. Of course, I haven’t tested either one out in a few years, so let’s just hope they work if we need ’em. I got shovels and a handsaw if they don’t. At least I think I do.”

When Cody just stared, Mitchell said, “Keep in mind this is Yellowstone. Anything can happen here and plans always go wrong. It’s just the nature of the place.”

The road was passable, although Cody and Mitchell twice had to get out of the truck and cut a path through fallen trees.

“This just seems wrong,” Cody said, lifting green branches out of the way of the idling F-250.

“It is wrong,” Bull Mitchell said, revving the motor on his chain saw to keep it running. He was haloed by oily blue smoke.

“Breaking into a national park seems like breaking into a church,” Cody said.

Mitchell snorted and said, “That’s a result of too much indoctrination in public school and too many Disney shows. It’s great country-you’ll see-but it isn’t all sweetness and light. Charlie the Lonesome Cougar would happily take a chunk out of Bambi’s tender throat. This place will eat you up and spit you out if you’re ever off your guard. Especially where we’re going.”

Dawn rose pink and cold and sudden waves of rain lashed at the trees and drummed on the hood of the truck but went away as suddenly as they’d come.

Cody told Mitchell about the fire in his room at the Gallatin Gateway Inn as Mitchell eyed him warily but didn’t utter a word.

Cody let the story trail off without sharing his suspicions about Larry.

“Got a question,” Mitchell said, minutes afterward.

“What?”

“Why are your hands shaking like that?”

Cody had held up his right hand. Mitchell was right.

“DTs?” Mitchell said.

“I guess.”

“Let’s hope you don’t have to aim your gun at anything,” Mitchell said.

“Mind if I smoke?”

“Damned right I mind.”

As they saddled up in a treeless alcove at the end of the service road, Cody admired Mitchell’s experience and abilities. Although the old man moved slowly, there wasn’t a wasted step or gesture. Mitchell had obviously spent his life around horses and outfitting, and he saddled the horses, filled and balanced the panniers, and tied a series of intricate outfitter knots over the cargo practically in the dark.

When Mitchell pointed toward the paint horse and grunted, Cody asked why he was called Gipper.

“Last good president,” Mitchell said, as if the answer had been obvious.

“Don’t cross him neither,” Mitchell warned. “He ain’t as affable as he looks. Just like his namesake, and his owner: me.”

After five straight hours of riding Cody noticed a subtle increase in hue within the forest and more bars of sunlight. Soon there were large enough openings in the canopy he could see blue sky and distant strings of high-altitude cirrus clouds and finally the trees fell away and the horses broke through over a ridge and the whole bright green world, it seemed, was laid out in front of them. The day had warmed considerably and the wind was so slight it barely rippled through the grass. The sun was straight over their heads and the air was thin and smelled of pine and sage from the valley below and it smelled so fresh he was afraid it would unclog his lungs and slough off the tar and nicotine and give him a coughing fit.

Bull Mitchell paused his mount. Cody wrestled with Gipper until the gelding finally understood he was to keep walking alongside the packhorse, and Cody pulled his horse to a stop abreast of Mitchell.

When Cody looked out over the vista of green carpeted saddle slopes with tree-choked river valleys, massive red-veined geological upthrusts that bordered the eastern horizon until they gave up and became mountains, and the vast sprawling tableau of Yellowstone Lake miles ahead and below them, he said, “What big country.”

Mitchell grunted and reached back into a saddlebag for his binoculars. “Don’t fall in love with it,” Mitchell said. “It’s guaranteed to break your heart.”

Cody used the pause to dismount. His legs were stiff and his knees felt as if they’d been tortured on a rack to bend them inward. He hobbled toward the packhorse and began to unbuckle one of the panniers where he’d seen Mitchell pack his duffel bag.

“See anything?” Cody asked Mitchell.

After a long pause, Mitchell said, “I see a herd of elk, a couple of coyotes, and an eagle. And a whole meadow filled with buffalo chips. Must have been a hundred of them critters there not long ago.”

“I meant the pack trip,” Cody said, irritated.

“Nope.”

Cody withdrew his duffel and dropped it on the ground. It hurt to squat. As soon as he opened it his stomach clenched. Manically, he rooted through the clothing and the gear.

“Shit!”

Mitchell didn’t look down from his glasses, but asked what the problem was.

“My cigarettes,” Cody said. “I bought a carton of them for the trip. I know I bought a carton and I remember packing them.”

Mitchell was silent.

Cody stood up and felt a wave of pure panic. Then he kicked the bag. “Shit. They must have been in the duffel bag that burned up. Shit.”

Mitchell said, “It’s a long way to the nearest convenience store.”

Cody stanched an impulse to pull his Sig Sauer out of his holster and shoot the outfitter right there.

Mitchell shrugged. “Now’s as good a time as any to quit, I suppose. I did it years ago. Just stopped. No big deal.”

Cody rubbed his face. It felt as if there were tendrils of sinew inside his body tightening up, waiting for the familiar shot of nicotine to relax them. The sky began to spin and the earth itself seemed to undulate, like slow waves across a pool. He patted his pockets, hoping he’d find a spare pack. He rooted through his coat and his saddlebag. In the bottom of a saddlebag he located a cellophane pack that contained… two cigarettes. Cody felt as if he’d won the lottery.

Mitchell said, “Might as well save ’em.”

Cody said, “Bullshit,” and lit one up. He’d figure out later when he’d have the last one.

As he sucked in the smoke his body relaxed and seemed to moan with delight. The sky stopped spinning and the valley below stilled.

Cody asked, “Does Jed smoke?”

“Not that I remember.”

“I bet somebody in that group does,” Cody said, swinging himself painfully back into the saddle. The sores on his thighs burned instantly. “Which is another reason to find ’em fast.”

Mitchell clucked his tongue and his horse stepped out. He said, “I’m not sure I’m getting paid enough money to come out here into the wilderness with a desperate man withdrawing from alcohol and cigarettes.”

“Please shut up,” Cody said.

Mitchell laughed. “First you chew my ass for not talking, and now it’s shut up,” he said. “Make up your damned mind.”

“I know one thing,” Cody said twenty minutes later, as they descended toward the valley floor. “If I can’t find some cigarettes pretty soon I’m likely to rip the heart out of the guy we’re chasing with my bare hands and feed it to him.”

Mitchell said, “So who are we chasing, anyway?”

“Hell if I know.”

Cody rode in silence, consumed by the maelstrom in his head. He recounted the conversations he’d had with Larry and the information Larry had conveyed. The pieces of the puzzle had been laid out on the table by Larry, along with a few more he’d added himself, so the logical sequence should have been for the two of them to start assembly and come up with a viable theory or conclusion or at least to be able to discard unworkable scenarios. But if Larry had been working against him, could he count on anything his ex-partner had said? Were there even other victims at all? Was Larry the puppet master pulling his strings, leading him to where Larry wanted him to go? Or was it simply a matter of Larry getting Cody out of the picture and out of the way? There was no place in the country more isolated than where he was right now, Cody thought. If Larry’s plan had been to get him out of the way, he couldn’t have succeeded better.

So was there any validity at all to Larry’s information? Was it even true that the last Web site Hank Winters had looked at was the one for Jed McCarthy’s pack trip? Or was that all part of Larry’s misdirection, too?

He weighed the possibility of turning around and going back. That way, he could wring Larry’s neck and blow up whatever game Larry was playing.

They were in the middle of Camp One before Cody even realized it. Only when Bull Mitchell stopped his horse and swung down to the ground did Cody notice there were rough squares of flattened grass on the plateau where tents had been and an alcove in the trees with a fire pit.

“Jed’s doing a good job,” Mitchell said, with a lilt of admiration. “He’s running a low-impact outfit. You wouldn’t even know they were here last night except if you knew the exact location. No garbage or human sign except where they flattened the grass.”

Cody dismounted as well. He thought he knew why real cowboys liked to sit their horses so long: it hurt too much to get off.

He leaned against Gipper while the blood flowed into his legs and the pain receded. He watched Mitchell roam the campsite and thrust his hand into the fire pit. When he came back wiping the ash on his jeans, he said, “Yup, they were here this morning. The rocks are still warm and the ash is moist from when they put the fire out.”

“Any idea how long they’ve been gone?”

Mitchell said, “It’s hard to get everybody up, fed, and get an entire camp packed up. My guess is that they were probably on the trail by nine. So four or five hours is all.”

Cody swallowed. He tried to imagine his son in the camp just hours before. He hadn’t seen him since last Christmas. He wondered how tall he was now, and how long his hair was.

Cody started to ask Mitchell how long it would take for them to catch them when he noticed Mitchell looking down toward the shore of the lake and squinting.

Cody turned, and said, “What are you seeing?”

Mitchell said, “I thought I caught a glimpse of something down by the water. Something moved. You see it?”

Cody couldn’t see well enough through the trees so he shifted to his left. Branches were parted enough for him to get an unimpeded view all the way down the slope to the shore of the lake.

“Wolves,” Cody said. “At least three of them.”

One wolf was jet-black, another was silver, and the third was mottled gray. Cody could see they were feeding at the water’s edge.

25

Gracie lagged behind her sister on the trail, putting distance between Strawberry and Danielle’s horse. It seemed odd to her there were four fewer riders ahead on the second day.

Despite his friend James Knox’s disapproval and Jed’s pleading, Tony D’Amato had decided the only way he could live with himself was to track down Tristan Glode and try to persuade him to come back. Drey Russell thought D’Amato was on a fool’s mission, but agreed to ride with him. Their plan, they said, was to rejoin the group at Camp Two. Grudgingly, Jed had given the two his maps and told them to look for a marker on which trail to follow when they came back.

Gracie noticed how Dakota watched the exchange in silence, shaking her head.

It had warmed up enough that Gracie had stripped off her hoodie to her T-shirt. Although she could still see Yellowstone Lake to her left, the path had climbed away from it and they’d gained hundreds of feet of elevation. The rhythmic clop-clop-clop of the horses soothed her and reminded her she was in a beautiful, wild place on a perfect summer day and that not everything was horrible. That Rachel Mina had smiled at her with a hint of sympathetic understanding while they were saddling up had buoyed her more than she would have thought.

But all of the questions remained unanswered.

“Everything all right up there?” Dakota asked from behind her. “You need to keep up, girl.”

Instead of goosing Strawberry into a faster walk, Gracie reined her horse off to the side of the trail so Dakota could catch up. The trail was not so narrow or the trees so close as they climbed that they couldn’t ride side by side for a while.

When Dakota caught up Gracie fell in beside her.

“Nice day,” Gracie said.

“Yes it is.” Dakota looked over with a hint of suspicion.

“You do this a lot, right?” Gracie asked.

“This is my third summer. So yeah, a lot of pack trips. Most of them are quite a bit shorter than this one, though. This is the big one of the year.”

“How’d you meet Jed?” Gracie asked. “Are you two a couple?”

Dakota smiled slyly. “Right to the point.”

Gracie tried to smile back innocently.

“I met him in Bozeman,” she said. “I was in my third year at the university and I was helping pay the bills by barrel-racing and riding horses for rich folks. There are quite a lot of rich people who’ve moved to Montana and they like the idea of owning horses but hardly any of ’em know a thing about them. But horses need to be ridden, and I put an ad in the Chronicle. Pretty soon, I was getting paid for going out to ranchettes and riding their horses for them to keep the animals in shape and to keep them well trained. Getting paid to ride horses is just about the coolest thing in the world, you know.”

“That sounds pretty fun,” Gracie said.

“So one of the ladies I worked for got divorced and decided to sell out and move back to L.A.,” Dakota said. “Jed bought all three of her horses. In fact, Strawberry there was one of them. So I delivered the horses to Jed at his place and we started talking and he offered me a job as wrangler. Seems his last guy wasn’t dependable. I started off as his wrangler and, well, you know. We were already spending a couple of months together day and night, so pretty soon we figured we might as well share the same tent, I guess.”

“I sort of know what that’s like,” Gracie said. “I mean, Danielle is my sister.”

Dakota laughed. “Yeah, even I can see how pretty she is.”

“So do you love him?”

“Jesus, girl,” Dakota said, actually blushing.

“It just seems…”

“It seems like what?”

“You seem really different from each other.”

“You mean because he’s older?”

“That,” Gracie said, “and he’s your boss. But you don’t seem to be the kind of person who needs a boss. And he’s not like you at all, you know?”

Dakota went silent for a few moments and Gracie feared she’d offended her. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Dakota said. “I’m just trying to figure out how to answer.

“I guess,” she said, “it’s kind of an unusual situation. I never knew my dad except that he worked in the oil fields in Wyoming, and when I grew up the only thing I could do well was hang around horses. I trust horses more than people, even though they can be knuckleheads. At least they’re innocent knuckleheads, though. They never do anything because they’re mean, only because they’re scared or spooked or trying to get away. But they aren’t mean, like people are. When I talked to Jed he pretty much said the same thing. Plus, do you know how hard it is for a girl like me to find a partner my age who isn’t an idiot? So many of the guys my age are slackers who are just plain scared of girls in general and me in particular. I get tired of waiting for them to grow up, you know? I don’t think I can wait forever. I tried to find someone to take me as I am, but pickings are slim, girl.”

Gracie nodded. “So what’s he like? I mean, when he isn’t being the boss?”

“I can’t believe you’re asking me these questions,” she said. “And I especially can’t believe I’m answering them.”

“He seems mysterious,” Gracie prompted.

“Oh, he is that. He’s always got something going,” she said. “Did you know he was a poet? He’s published a couple of books of poetry. Can you believe that?”

“Is it good poetry?”

“I can’t tell,” she laughed. “It’s beyond me. I mean, I get parts of it, but it’s really difficult to understand. He’s even won a couple of awards for it, I guess. And there have been times when he reads it to me. It sounds beautiful when he reads it out loud because he has so much passion, but it’s not like I understand most of it. I pretend I do, but I don’t. I think he’s kind of frustrated more people don’t recognize his genius.”

Gracie peered ahead, trying to see Jed McCarthy in a different light.

“Is he nice to you?” she asked Dakota.

“Much of the time,” Dakota said.

“But not always.”

“No,” she said. “He can be the most obtuse son of a bitch I’ve ever met sometimes. Worse than a mule. And when he gets a new idea in his head, like a new poem or a new way to make more money, he gets pretty full of himself. I think he prefers his own company to anyone else because he’s the only one smart enough to stand himself, if you know what I mean. That’s when I feel like throwing in the towel and just hitting the road.”

“Are you feeling that way now?”

Dakota looked over and gave Gracie a long searching look. “How did you know that?”

“I watched you two earlier.”

“Sometimes I just can’t figure out what’s going on under his hat,” she said. “And this is one of those times.”

“Why do you think Mr. Glode left?”

Dakota sighed. “Mrs. Glode,” she said.

“Simple as that?”

“It’s a hell of a lot more complicated,” Dakota said. “I think the two of them were hoping they’d find something out here they didn’t find. There have been other couples on these trips looking for the same thing. So at least I can sort of understand that.”

“What else?” Gracie said.

“Wilson,” Dakota said.

“You mean you don’t know why he left, too?”

Dakota nodded. “I’m going to tell you something nobody knows,” she said. “I didn’t stay with Jed last night. We had a fight and I slept outside by the fire. At one point I had to get up to pee and I walked up above the tents into the trees. In the moonlight, I could see somebody lurking around. Kind of moving real slow and deliberate-walking back and forth from the tents to the lake. I sort of snuck down there and I saw it was Wilson. I don’t know what the hell he was doing, but he gave me the creeps. He was just out walking around.”

“Did you tell Jed?”

“Not yet. His head is too far up his butt to listen to anyone.”

“What do you think Wilson was doing?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. But it looked like he was planning something, or waiting for someone. Maybe it was Tristan Glode, but that doesn’t make much sense to me.”

Gracie thought about that.

“Maybe it was Wilson and Mr. Glode who had a fight?” she said.

“Maybe. But you’re the only one who said they heard anything.”

“Don’t you believe me?”

Dakota said, “Let me put it this way. I believe you think you heard something.”

Gracie said, “But why would they leave together after that? And what would they fight about? I mean, if it was Tony and Mr. Glode at least they’d have a reason.”

“I know. It beats me.”

“I didn’t hear an argument,” Gracie said.

Dakota shrugged. “I don’t know what the hell is going on, but something is. You look ahead of us at all those people on horses in this setting, and you think, what a perfect thing. But what you don’t know is what’s going on in everyone’s head, and what they might be thinking about everyone else.

“That,” she said, “is the reason I prefer horses.”

Jed had pulled his horse and mules off to the side of the trail to let his clients ride past. When Gracie and Dakota reached him, Jed said, “Dakota, you take lead for a while. I’ll tail up.”

Gracie saw that Dakota wanted to argue but clamped her mouth closed, pulled her hat tight, and urged her horse and mules on. Jed fell into place where Dakota had been but he didn’t stay there long.

He said, “So, you enjoying the trip so far?”

There was something disconcerting in the way he asked, she thought. Like he couldn’t wait to get past the formalities. Like he kind of enjoyed playing with her, enjoyed reeling her in with his soft voice.

“I guess.”

“What about your sister? She seems like maybe this isn’t her dream vacation.”

Gracie had to smile at that.

“Thought so,” he said.

“I wanted to ask you something,” he said. “I saw you talking away with Dakota. What on earth were you girls chatting about for so many miles?”

“Nothing in particular,” she lied.

“Really?” A hint of sarcasm.

“Girls do that,” she said. “We just talk about nothing for hours. You know, clothes, nails, shoes. Girly things. That’s just how we girls are.”

He chuckled. “You are a pistol,” he said. “Now really, what were you two talking about for so long?”

Gracie squirmed in her saddle. She wondered why it felt like it had gotten warm, like those car seat heaters did in her mother’s Volvo. She said, “I asked her how she liked her job. Since I like horses and all.”

“Ah,” Jed said. “And she told you what?”

“She said it was pretty good most of the time.”

“My name come up?”

“Of course,” Gracie said. “You’re her boss.”

Up until that moment, she hadn’t noticed the sheath knife on his belt that lay across the top of his thigh. She guessed it had always been there amidst the things he wore, but she’d just not focused on it before.

He said, “Females always talk too much.”

She didn’t know if he meant her or Dakota. Or both. He had looked away from her but there seemed to be a lot going on in his head.

“Are we going to find those two guys?” she asked.

“Oh,” he said, almost vacant, “we’ll find ’em.”

26

Bull Mitchell roared and fired his.44 Magnum over the backs of the wolves. The concussion in the epic stillness was tremendous and Cody flinched and came back up with his ears ringing. The big slug slapped the surface of the water twenty feet out and all three wolves wheeled toward them on their back haunches.

Cody could look into their black eyes and see their long red teeth and pink-tinged snouts and he instinctively reached for his Sig Sauer. He’d bought bear spray the day before in Bozeman but it had been in the duffel with his carton of cigarettes so therefore he didn’t have any. He couldn’t get over how doglike they were, yet they weren’t dogs. They had the eyes of dogs and the fur of dogs, but they were wild, big, and menacing. The black one had yellow-rimmed eyes that seemed to burn in their sockets.

“Hold on,” Mitchell said. “Stand tall and tough. They want to protect their food but we’ve got to face ’em down and show no fear.”

To the wolves, Mitchell barked, “Get the hell into the woods where you belong. Now get…”

To emphasize his point, he ratcheted back the hammer on his Ruger and fired again, this time exploding a plume of swamp mud from a depression five feet in front of the wolves.

The black alpha male-Cody guessed he’d weigh 175 pounds-woofed and exhaled and loped away along the shoreline to the south. The silver female followed and Cody caught a glimpse of something long and blue that reminded him of sausage swinging from her jaws as she ran. The mottled wolf, likely also a male, Cody thought, followed her without conviction, as if he’d wanted to fight. He couldn’t believe how fast they ran or how powerful they looked, like ghosts with teeth.

“They might not have gone far,” Mitchell said, “so keep your eyes open.”

“My God,” Cody said, and lifted his hand. “Look at this. I was so scared my hand stopped shaking.”

Mitchell chuckled while he withdrew the empty brass cartridges out of the revolver and replaced them with fresh hollow-point shells.

“I’ll keep this out and cover us,” Mitchell said, chinning toward the shoreline where the wolves had been. “You might as well keep that little popgun of yours in your holster. It’ll just make ’em mad if they decide to come back.”

The first thing Cody noticed as they approached the shoreline was the smell. Mingling with the thin warm air and algae-tinged odor from the lake was a primal whiff of musk from the thick hides of the wolves and the dank metallic smell of viscera.

A tangle of partially submerged driftwood stretched from the shore into the lake for twenty feet. A scum of algae sucked in and out of the water-worn branches of the structure as if being inhaled and exhaled by the structure itself. There was a deep shadowed undercut beneath the driftwood.

The body was half in and half out of the water with the head on the beach, face to the side. Its legs were submerged in the water and pointed down toward the undercut at such an angle that the feet could hardly be seen in the murk. The body appeared to have no arms.

Male, thin, pale, middle-aged, the waterlogged skin alabaster white except for the jagged gaping holes between its ribs and between the legs. All the soft internal parts had been torn away and eaten by the wolves. The clothing on the victim-a lightweight long-sleeved shirt, baggy cargo pants, cowboy boots-had been flayed into ribbons by the teeth of the wolves. The dark sand beach was trampled with canine paw prints, some slowly filling with chocolate-milk-colored swirls of water. The deep indentations of their claws looked like small-caliber bullet holes in the sand.

“Oh man,” Mitchell said.

It wasn’t Justin. As soon as Cody was assured of that, he felt his cop blinders descending like the shield of a motorcycle helmet. The shield would help him disengage from making a personal connection with the dead body and treat it for what it was: meat whose soul and life spark had long since left it. The wolves had certainly understood that.

Cody turned the body over to find that the arms weren’t missing after all. The wrists had been bound with wire behind its back.

He bent down and found handholds beneath the arms and tried to pull the body fully out of the water but it wouldn’t budge. He frowned.

“Are you going to give me a hand?” Cody asked Mitchell.

“Nope,” the outfitter said. “This is your department.”

Cody looked up for clarification.

Mitchell chinned toward the dark timber to the south as they both heard the muffled crack of a branch. “We interrupted those wolves,” he said. “They like to eat their fill, then drag what’s left into the trees and cache it for later. I’m sure they’re watching us and they probably think we’re stealing it from them. Keep in mind some of these wolves don’t have much fear of man anymore, if they ever did. All these wolves have known for the last couple of decades is that every time they encounter any humans, the Park Service rangers rush in and cordon off the area to keep the people away from them. These critters have learned they have nothing to fear since it’s obvious they’ve been put on the top of the food chain. That’s fine for the wolf population, but the ramifications aren’t so pretty for us two-legged creatures.

“So if they decide to come back, I want to be ready.”

Cody said, “Okay.”

He tugged again but the body was held tight by something under the water that gave only slightly. Then he saw the cord wrapped around the ankles that vanished into the hole beneath the driftwood structure. He waded to his thighs in the water. It was startlingly cold for midsummer, so cold it stung. He followed the cord down with his fingers until he could get a good grip with both hands, and he grunted and leaned back, putting his back into it. Whatever the cord was attached to gave and Cody grunted again and walked backwards toward the sand until he was on dry land. His effort spun the body around as well as revealed the large round rock intricately tied to the other end of the cord. He kept yanking until both the body and the rock were out of the water.

For the first time he noticed another length of cord around the victim’s neck, so deeply imbedded into the flesh he’d missed it earlier. A two-inch length stuck out from a tight knot, with the loose end slightly frayed. Cody recognized it as nylon parachute cord-a staple of hunters, hikers, and trekkers everywhere.

Cody said, “Whoever did this tied rocks to his feet and neck and dropped them under the driftwood, dragging the body beneath the surface. Whoever did it probably thought no one would ever find the body. They didn’t count on the wolves fishing him out and biting through one of the cords.”

Mitchell grunted. He looked pale and a little gaunt, and he did his best to scour the trees for signs of the wolves and avoid looking at the body.

Cody dropped to his hands and knees and crawled around the body, looking over every inch of it. He guessed the victim was in his late fifties or sixties and had been in pretty good shape. Unfortunately, his eyes, throat, belly, and genitals had been eaten away.

“Ah,” Cody said, bending in close to the victim’s head and turning it so the grotesque features no longer faced him, “Here we go.”

There was a one-and-a-half-inch cut under the man’s right ear. It was J shaped, with a jagged entry at its wide end tapering to a narrow slice slightly above the jawbone.

“Knife wound,” Cody said. “The puncture looks deep enough the blade likely went all the way into his brain. An instant kill. Since the thick part of the blade points toward the back, I’d guess the killer came at him from behind, probably grabbed the man’s hair and pulled back, then shoved the knife in hard. Perfect placement, too. The killer could have stabbed the guy in the back or reached around and slit his throat. But he went for the single-thrust kill.”

Mitchell grunted.

Cody recalled Larry’s findings: Gary Shulze… The difference here is it appears there was a deep puncture wound into his brain… caused by a knife blade driven into his skull and withdrawn.

“Let me get my camera and my file,” Cody said. “We’ll treat this as a crime scene, as low-tech as it is.”

“You’re the cop.”

“I’m going to get my file of the applications for the pack trip,” Cody said.

Mitchell said, “I’ll go with you to cover you and I’ll bring the horses down here with us. Wolves like to eat horses, too.”

While Cody photographed the body, the scene, the rope, the rock, and the wounds with his digital camera using his camera case in the shots for perspective, Mitchell ate lunch. The outfitter sat on a large rock with his back toward the lake and his.30-06 across his lap and gnawed on pieces of jerky and washed them down with water. His eyes swept the timber from side to side.

Cody knew he’d fouled the scene. He’d moved the body and walked and crawled all over the sand next to it.

“If it wasn’t for that knife wound,” Mitchell said, “I might have thought the poor son of a bitch could have been mauled by wolves and then sunk in the water to hide him away from more mutilation.”

Cody nodded. He’d been replaying scenario after scenario in his mind for the past half hour.

“It’s happened before,” Mitchell said. “In the deep backcountry like this, folks leave a dead body so they and the Park Service can come after it once they get out. Packing a body along just invites bears and mountain lions and such. It’s like trolling for predators. It’s not a good idea.”

Cody didn’t respond. He pulled his duffel out of the panniers and withdrew the file folder.

It didn’t take long. He said, “My guess is this is Tristan Glode, president and CEO of The Glode Company of St. Louis. He look sixty-one to you?”

Mitchell grimaced when he looked over. “Yup. Could be.”

“He fits the physical description here in the applications,” Cody said. “There’s only two other older men on the pack trip. One is named K. W. Wilson and there isn’t much background on him. The other is Walt Franck, His Richness, and I know that son of a bitch and this isn’t him. Which is kind of a shame.”

“Want some jerky?”

“No,” Cody said. “I want a cigarette.”

“Sorry.”

“I wonder what he did to deserve this,” Cody said. “Knifing a sixty-one-year-old man. His wife’s on the trip, it looks like. I wonder if she’s involved or if we’ll find her body up ahead. I can’t see her just going along after her husband’s been killed. And how many in the group saw it happen? And what kind of hell are they going through now?”

Mitchell shrugged.

“Do you have a GPS?” Cody asked. “Mine got burned up in the fire. I’d like to get the exact coordinates here so we can let the rangers know to come get the body.”

Mitchell said, “I know the exact location of Camp One. I’ll tell ’em.”

“There may be more forensic evidence around here,” Cody said, looking up toward where the tents were pitched on the grassy shelf. “A crime-scene crew could find something if they got here before too long. Maybe where the killing took place, or footprints, or pieces of parachute cord. Or blood. It’s not unusual to find the blood of the killer at the scene of a knifing. It’s amazing how often the assailant cuts himself with his own knife during a struggle. Lots of times they don’t even know it until later.”

“Yeah,” Mitchell said with a slow smile building, “I watch them shows on television. The CSI folks would get here and we’d know the whole story and catch the bad guy in forty-eight minutes flat.”

“It doesn’t work like that,” Cody said.

“And it sure as hell wouldn’t work here,” Mitchell said. “I promise you that. It’ll likely rain this afternoon and wash evidence away, or the wolves will come back and clean things up. Nothing works here like normal, like I told you earlier.”

Cody sat down heavily on a rock next to Mitchell.

He said, “I’ve never been on a crime scene before when it was just me. Usually we’ve got evidence techs and forensic guys on the way, not to mention all my own equipment. I can’t even communicate with anyone except you. I feel so goddamned helpless.”

“So maybe we better get on our horses and find the rest of ’em,” Mitchell said. “That’s the only way we’re going to know what’s happened here.”

“Yeah. So you said earlier we have to leave the body?”

Mitchell nodded. “We ain’t takin’ it with us, that’s for sure.”

“Then what do we do with it? Sink it back into the lake? Bury it?”

“Wolves’ll come back,” Mitchell said, shaking his head. “There won’t be nothin’ left. There’s only one thing we can do.”

Cody said, “Hang it up?”

“I know where the food pole is,” Mitchell said, struggling to his feet, his back popping. “A hundred yards up the mountain away from the camp. Unless Jed moved it. We can run the body up the pole until the rangers get here.”

“Man.”

“Unless you’ve got a better idea.”

“I wish I did.”

It wasn’t easy. Cody got kicked in the face with Glode’s boots as the body was pulled up into the air. Mitchell had dallied the rope around his saddle horn and walked his horse toward the north until the body was raised twenty feet into the air. Cody looked up. Glode’s arms were splayed straight out to the sides from the rope looped under his arms. His head was cocked to the side and his legs hung straight down. The body turned slowly as they tied the rope off after wrapping it around the sap-heavy trunk of a lodgepole pine.

“Birds’ll get at it,” Mitchell said, “but there isn’t much we can do about that. This is about as dignified as we can get for now.”

Mitchell tied the rope off. “Things have changed around here in more ways than one,” he said, as much to himself as to Cody. “If anything, they’ve gotten a hell of a lot wilder and more dangerous than they used to be. The grizzly bear population is way up, and there’s nothing going to keep it down. And the reintroduction of wolves has changed the whole ecosystem. I’ve heard old-timers compare this wolf deal to introducing street gangs back into inner cities where the gangs had long since been wiped out. I’m not sure I’d go that far,” Mitchell said, “but it sure has changed things. There are a hell of a lot more critters around that can eat us than there used to be.”

“Great,” Cody said.

As they rode away from Camp One the trail was instantly recognizable. It was churned up by the hooves of multiple horses and mules.

“One thing I’m sure you noticed, being the detective and all,” Mitchell said over his shoulder as he rode, “was that rock holding the body underwater.”

Puzzled, Cody said, “What about the rock?”

“I guess I mean the knots on it.”

“What about the knots?” Cody asked, annoyed.

“You didn’t recognize the style of knots used to secure that rock to the line?”

Cody sighed. “I’m getting tired of being strung along here.”

“Diamond hitches,” Mitchell said. “Damned near perfect ones. Not the easiest thing to tie in the world, but probably the best damned knot in an outfitter’s arsenal.”

Cody felt his face go slack.

“Think about it,” Mitchell said again.

Cody reached back into his saddlebag as he rode and found the satellite phone. After staring at it in his hand for a few minutes, he powered it on.

It took two minutes to boot up, find the satellite, and come back with full reception.

He had five messages. All from Larry.

27

As Gracie and Dakota topped the hill they found the others. Jed had ridden ahead and gathered everyone off to the side of the trail and they sat their horses and looked back at the stragglers.

Dakota said, “Oops, looks like we let them get too far ahead of us.”

“Are you in trouble?”

“Naw, I can handle it.”

Gracie saw where Jed had tied a red bandana on a sapling to indicate to D’Amato and Russell-and possibly Tristan Glode and Wilson-where to turn off.

Jed said to Dakota, “You need to keep the hell up.”

Dakota lied, “Gracie was having a little trouble with Strawberry. We got it all worked out.”

Jed narrowed his eyes and looked from Dakota to Gracie and back. Gracie could tell he wasn’t sure he was buying the explanation.

Her dad rode over to her. “Everything okay, honey?”

“Fine,” Gracie said.

He rode close alongside and reached out and touched her cheek. “I’m sorry about earlier.”

“Me too,” she said.

She could see the relief in his face. He said, “We still do need to talk.”

“I know.”

“Danielle, too. We all need to talk. I thought it would be easier on this trip but we’re constantly with everyone else.”

Gracie nodded, and he touched her again and walked his horse back to his place in line.

She said, “Dad?”

When he turned, his face filled with concern, she said, “Danielle and I talked with her. She seems nice.”

He beamed, and said, “She is.”

“Okay,” Jed barked, gesturing toward a thick copse of trees at the edge of the meadow, “this is where the trail breaks off. And if everyone will keep in line and follow me and not wander too far behind,” he glared at Dakota, “we should all be okay.”

And with that he turned his horse and gathered his mules and set off across the meadow. To Gracie, it didn’t even look like a trail.

Where are we going?

She turned and looked over her shoulder at Dakota. Dakota shrugged and extended her arms palms up in a who knows? gesture.

28

Cody wanted to hurt someone, break something, unleash holy hell. He’d chewed up two packages of Stride gum and drained his Nalgene bottle, pretending the warm plastic-tasting water was 100-proof alcohol, but it wasn’t. His cravings for nicotine and booze pulled at him from the inside like talons and he thought, One cold beer, one cigarette, that’s all I fucking ask. That, and my son.

The single cigarette he had remaining was in his breast pocket, but he’d sworn to himself to save it for when everything was over and Justin was safe. As he rode past pine trees he wondered what their bark would taste like if he stripped it, crumbled it into powder, and inhaled. When he rode Gipper over small streams of water he looked down and wished it came from a brewery.

His head swam and he couldn’t concentrate, but there was one thing he knew and he finally said it to Bull Mitchell.

“You need to turn around and go home.”

Mitchell acted as if he hadn’t heard him. He rode ahead, comfortable in his saddle, his shoulders wide as if telling him to shut up and go away.

They were an hour from Camp One, an hour from where they’d found the body. They hadn’t talked, but Cody recognized that Mitchell had picked up the pace and made his horse and the packhorse work harder than before.

“I said, you need to turn around now and go home,” Cody said again.

Mitchell didn’t turn his head. He drawled, “And why is that?”

“Because I promised your daughter I wouldn’t put you into a bad situation. But we’re in one. We’ve got a dead body and who knows what we’re riding into. The deal was you’d guide me. I figured we’d find them and you could hang back and let me do my job. But we’ve got a dead man hanging from a tree and this isn’t what the deal was.”

Mitchell rode along.

Cody said, “This trail we’re on is all churned up by Jed’s horses. An idiot could follow this, it’s like a highway. I don’t need you anymore and your daughter does. Your wife does. I’ll return the horses when I’m through.”

Mitchell chuckled drily, and said, “Will you now?”

“Yes. Go back to the truck and trailer and I’ll meet you there when this is through.”

Mitchell rode along.

“I’m not kidding. It’s not a negotiation. I’ll pay you what I promised because you delivered. You got me here and pointed me where I need to go. Like I said, any idiot could follow their trail now that we’re on it.”

“And you’re the idiot?”

Cody said, “Pretty much, goddamn it. I’ve got it covered. Go back to the truck, relax, and I’ll see you tomorrow or whenever.”

“You’re sure?”

He said it in a way that led Cody to believe he might have been thinking the same thing.

“I’m absolutely sure.”

Mitchell conceded, “There is a pretty obvious trail.”

“Yes, there is.”

“An idiot could follow it.”

“Yes.”

“If I get back to the truck, you want me to call the Park Service? Tell them about the dead man?”

Cody hesitated a moment, thinking about the ramifications. He knew the Park Service would respond but probably not quickly. The logistics of ordering up rangers or a helicopter would take hours, and maybe more time than that. He should be on Justin by then. He said, “Yes, call ’em.”

Mitchell seemed to be thinking about it. He said, “You think I’m too old and feeble to finish this job?”

Cody said, “Jesus, no. But I made a promise to your daughter. I want to keep it.”

“Damn her.”

“She’s just looking out for her dad. I’d like to think Justin would someday do the same for me,” he said, wondering if that would ever happen.

Mitchell clicked his tongue and turned his horse around. Cody saw disappointment in his face. As he rode by headed the opposite direction he handed Cody the reins to the packhorse.

“Dally the rope around your saddle horn once and keep it loose,” Mitchell said. “That way, if she gets spooked she won’t take you with her or take you down. But don’t forget she’s there.”

“Okay,” Cody said, taking the rope.

“There’s four days’ worth of food in the panniers and some oats for the horses tonight. Feed them before you feed yourself and hobble them up. Make sure they get to water and brush ’em good. They haven’t been out much.”

“All right.”

“Take care of yourself,” Mitchell said, looking into Cody’s eyes. “And take this,” he said, pulling his.44 Magnum from his holster and handing it over butt first. “For bears.”

“I don’t need-”

“The hell you don’t,” Mitchell said. And rode away.

Cody was sad to see him go, and more than a little scared being completely and totally alone. Not that he didn’t do his best work by himself, but Bull Mitchell had a sense of confidence and purpose in the wilderness Cody could never match, or try to. It was as if the last of his confidence was riding away. He kept glancing back at the packhorse, willing her to behave. Willing her to pretend he knew what he was doing.

He slid the long barrel of the.44 Magnum beneath his belt on the left side of his body so he could pull it-if necessary-with a sidearm draw. It was heavy and ungainly. But if the wolves came back or a grizzly blocked him on the trail he wouldn’t hesitate to fire. Mitchell’s observation about the many animals who could eat him had resonated.

29

Jed McCarthy led his clients west through dark and close stands of timber broken up by lush mountain meadows humming with insects. The alternate trail they had taken was faint, no more than an unpopular game trail at times, but he was sure he was on the right one and he didn’t dare stop and check his materials because he didn’t want anyone behind him to doubt he knew where he was taking them. Leaders, if they were true leaders, led. They didn’t dither, they didn’t doubt themselves. They led. He’d made that point to Dakota numerous times, back when she chose to listen to him. He didn’t know what her deal was now, which was her loss, not his. And he really didn’t care.

His stomach growled with tension and his hands were cold. He didn’t slow his pace or turn around, but he raised his right hand to his face and used his teeth, one finger at a time, to loosen his leather glove. Then he tucked it between the saddle and his Wranglers. Still looking ahead, he let his bare right hand creep back to the right nylon saddlebag, where his briefcase was. He worked his fingers inside and probed for the handgrip of his weapon, found it, and squeezed. The weight and texture of it reassured him. He was glad it was in easy reach.

They emerged into another grassy meadow and he clucked his tongue and led the mules off the trail over to the side against the wall of trees to make room for the rest of the riders.

When they were gathered he smiled at them because they looked apprehensive and they didn’t know why he’d stopped or what kind of news he might have for them. Dakota squinted at him, trying to guess the reason for the pause, as she rode past the group and over to the side. Everyone dismounted.

“I’m gettin’ a little concerned about Tony and Drey,” Jed said. “I thought they would have caught back up with us by now. Least I hoped they would.”

Knox, their friend, said, “Me, too.” He seemed alone and uncomfortable without his buddies to bounce his comments off.

Jed shot a glance over at Donna. She looked back with no reaction at all even though he’d not mentioned her husband.

Jed said, “I’m thinking it’s possible they might have ridden past my red bandana back there and not gotten on the right trail. That’s the only place I think they could have gotten confused, even though these horses leave sign like we’re an army on the march or something.”

He let the implications of that settle in, before he said, “So I’m thinkin’ I might ride back there and find those guys before they get too far down the wrong trail.”

He could tell by the dark looks on three faces in particular-Ted Sullivan, Rachel Mina, and Walt Franck-they didn’t like his idea at all. He didn’t even look over at Dakota because he could feel her eyes burning twin holes in his neck.

Walt said, “You’re gonna leave us?”

“Just for an hour or so,” Jed said, keeping it light. “I’ll ride hard down where we were, find those guys, and ride hard to get back. We should meet back up with you about the time you folks get close to Camp Two.”

He nodded toward Dakota and said, “Dakota knows our camps as good as I do or better. You don’t need to worry about her guiding you at all.”

Dakota’s voice was tight. “What about your mules?”

“I’ll leave them with you,” Jed said, looking over at her and showing his teeth. She glared at him but said nothing back. He knew she’d hold her fire until later, when the clients couldn’t hear her. Which is why he’d set up the whole scene to take place in the open.

Ted Sullivan cleared his throat. He said, “I’m not worried about Dakota leading us to the next camp, not at all. But I’m kind of wondering if it’s the best idea for you to go back for them and leave the group.”

Jed laughed drily. “Hell,” he said, “I always leave the group when I need to on any given trip. It ain’t unusual. Sometimes I need to go back for something-like a camera-that somebody left in camp, or sometimes I have to ride ahead and check trail conditions. Luckily,” he said, again tipping his hat toward Dakota, “we have this fine hand here to take over the outfit when that happens.”

Sullivan nodded conspicuously, as if to convince Jed and the others he had no further objection.

But Rachel Mina had fire in her eyes. She said, “We started this trip with fourteen people. Then last night we lost two. Today we lost two more. And now you’re leaving?”

Jed said, “Think of it as more food at dinnertime for everybody else.”

Walt chuckled, but that was it.

“Sorry,” Jed said. “I shouldn’t joke. But really, wouldn’t you rather get two and possibly three of the group back before dinner? That may not happen unless I go after them.”

“Still,” she said, “what if something happens to you? What if you get injured? This is your trip. How are we going to know what to do or where to go? We’re in the middle of nowhere and you gave your maps away to Tony and Drey, so we won’t even have those to go by.”

Walt nodded as she talked.

Donna Glode put her arms up, palms out, as if to quiet the crowd. Everyone turned toward her. She said, “Given what’s happened, I would suggest we abort the trip. There’s no reason to continue on as far as I’m concerned. I suggest tomorrow we go back to the vehicles and consider this trip the disaster it’s turned out to be.”

Silence. Gracie looked from face to face to see if anyone agreed.

Jed kicked at the dirt with obvious anger, but said softly, “I’ve never quit a trip before. But it’s up to everyone else. Any takers on Donna’s idea?”

No one spoke. Knox finally said, “I’m not in favor of going back until my friends find us or we know what happened to them.”

Walt jumped in, “Mrs. Glode, some of us don’t have the, uh, emotional investment you have in quitting. We paid good money for this. I’m not in support of going back yet.”

No one else spoke until Jed said, “Okay, it’s settled. We’ll find our strays and revisit this topic if necessary. But please keep in mind if you decide to quit you’ll be missing out on some great scenery and experiences. And now that we’ve agreed, I’m going to go find those missing boys.”

“I’m going with you,” Knox said. “They’re my friends.”

“Not a good idea,” Jed said flatly. “I’m going to ride all out to go get them. I’m talking balls-to-the-wall, if you ladies will excuse my French. Unless you can guarantee me you can keep up, it’s not a good idea.”

Knox flushed and said, “You know I can’t. This is my second day on a horse.”

“Then with all due respect, fall in behind Dakota and I’ll deliver your buddies to you.

“See you at Camp Two or before!” he said, climbing up and spurring his mount. He loved the feeling of his horse digging in and taking off, the hundreds of pounds of bunched muscle between his legs. Of being untethered from this slow gaggle of city-bred dudes who looked on at him with dumb eyes and stupid faces.

As he rocketed through the meadow he tipped his hat at each and every client, and most of them grinned back.

He knew he looked pretty damned dashing.

Gracie had to relieve herself but was not interested in locating any far-off portable toilet so she stepped into a thick copse of pine trees to find James Knox there zipping up. He was as startled as she was.

“You don’t want to go all the way up the hill either, I take it,” he said. “Sorry.”

“No, I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t know you were here.”

He waved her concern away. He said, “When you were looking at us last night, what were you thinking?”

She was surprised how direct he was. She stammered, “I don’t know. I’ve just never met anyone from New York City before, I guess.”

Knox flashed a quick grin. “We probably disappointed you.”

“Not really.”

He put his hands in his jeans pockets and leaned against the trunk of a tree. He was looking at her but he seemed distracted. “It would probably surprise you to know in real life the three of us are pretty serious people. People think we’re just a crew of cutups, but that’s just one week a year. We’re hard workers and we don’t screw around. What happened with Tony and-that woman, Donna-that was unusual. I’m sorry it happened, and I know Tony is busted up about it.”

She nodded. He seemed to be talking to himself as much as to her. His skin looked waxy and drawn as if it had been drained of blood. He looked older than she’d thought before.

“We’ve been good buddies for almost fifteen years,” he said. “The three of us. We all started together on the Street. We’ve been in each other’s weddings, helped each other out. Tony was supposed to have been in the World Trade Center that morning on 9/11 to meet a client, but he didn’t make it because he was hungover from my bachelor party the night before. That just goes to show you how fate works, you know? You’re young, but you know about 9/11, right?”

“Yes.”

He nodded. “Our wives always say be careful on these trips. They say don’t do anything stupid. We tell them we don’t. This kind of stuff never happened before. That’s not why we go on these adventures, to screw around. Now my friends aren’t here and I get this sick feeling,” he said as he gestured toward his heart. “I get this sick feeling…”

Then it was as if he woke up. He looked at her, shook his head, and flashed his smile again. “Why am I telling you this?”

“I don’t know.”

“What I’m trying to say, I guess, is friends are important. You’ve got to stick by them, even when they screw up.”

As he left the copse he reached out and patted her on the shoulder.

30

After a half hour of lone riding, Cody pulled up at a clean small stream that crossed the trail and painfully climbed down to let his horses drink. He hated depending on two animals he neither knew nor trusted, but he had no choice and his thought was to treat them well and maybe they’d reciprocate.

As both horses lowered their heads to suck up the cold water, he went a few feet upstream to fill his own bottle. He’d purchased a water filter kit, but it, like his cigarettes, had been in the duffel that burned up. Giardia contamination was the least of his worries. He thought if he got it, it would at least take his mind off no cigarettes or alcohol. To drive the point home, he drained a quarter of the icy unfiltered water and topped his Nalgene bottle and sealed it.

While the horses rested-oh, how he admired their dumb animal ability to grab a nap whenever they could-he sidled up to Gipper and withdrew the satellite phone again.

The first of Larry’s messages was blunt:

“Cody, where the hell are you? You said you’d turn your phone on. Call me back on this number as soon as you get this, partner.”

“Partner” was said with heavy sarcasm.

Cody said, “You’d like me to do that, wouldn’t you, partner.”

Then the second message:

“Hey, I don’t know what’s going on. I tried your cell and they said it wasn’t a working number. Which means you turned it off-stupid move-or your phone fucked up. Either way, you need to call me as soon as you can. Things are happening here. I’m on it. I’m starting to connect the dots and it’s getting real fucking interesting. Call me.”

His voice was urgent and elevated. Cody fought his instincts to return the call. Larry sounded excited. Cody said, “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

But he retrieved the third message:

“Cody, goddamn you. I know about the fire. I had a hunch and called the Gallatin Gateway when I heard about it and found out you registered there. And I talked to the Bozeman PD and Gallatin County Sheriff’s Department and found out you couldn’t be located but the fire started in your room. By the way, there’s an APB out for you. They want you for questioning and they suspect you of arson.

“What, are you on the bottle again? Are you flushing your life down the toilet and taking me with you? I can’t believe I lied. I hope you understand what I’m saying. I lied for you-again. Why am I doing this? What kind of dumb shit am I, anyway? I lie for you and you won’t even call me back.

“Then I start thinking: I know you. I know how you think. You’re a conspiracy-minded bastard and you probably suspect somebody fingered you. Assuming you didn’t set the fire yourself by getting hammered and passing out in bed with a cig hanging out of your mouth, of course. But only you know if that’s the case. And if it wasn’t, you’re wondering who fingered you and sent the arsonist. Right? Am I right, you jerk? Did you think it was me, the guy who is covering for you every step of the way and keeping you in the loop? You son of a bitch, I know how you think. And I’m disappointed in you to the point where I’m done with you. I’m over you. I heard you were never any good to begin with but I didn’t listen. You’re a half-breed white-trash asshole who doesn’t know enough to trust the only friend he’s got-”

Cody felt his ears go hot as the message timed out with Larry yelling at him. He staggered back until his shoulder blades thumped a tree trunk. He lowered the phone and thought about it. Usually, when someone attacked him personally-like Jenny-he agreed with them, he deserved it. But this was… confounding. Either Larry was the most evil manipulator he’d ever run across-and so many of the scumbags he encountered were able to justify anything they’d done with a straight face-or he’d misread completely what had happened and why.

Larry was good, Cody thought. He’d rattled him. As intended, he thought. Because nobody but another cop would think as many moves ahead.

Cody raised the satellite phone and retrieved message number four.

“Okay, you ingrate. That’s the best word I can think of for you. Either that, or you forgot the sat phone and your cell and in that case you’re just a fucking idiot, which seems more and more possible. I wouldn’t be surprised anymore if we found you in some drunk tank in Livingston or Ennis or maybe back where you belong in Denver. I’ve pretty much given up on you, I want you to know that.

“But if you ever get this and actually listen to it, I want you to know something. You need to find them-the pack trip your son is on-and call in the location. I’ve got the Park Service and the Feds alerted. They know what I know, and that this thing is bigger and worse than either of us thought. I’ve almost got it dialed in. And man, you’re not going to believe it. You’re in the middle of a shitstorm neither one of us anticipated. It goes back to the dead alcoholics, and I’m honing in on the explanation. But I’m sure as hell not going to leave it on your fucking message mailbox. So call me. I can’t say all is forgiven, but you don’t know what you’re getting into. It’s worse than-”

The message time ran out. Cody felt the hairs stand up on the back of his scalp. He took in a long quivering breath and punched the buttons on the phone for the last message. Larry whispered.

“I don’t know where you are or even if you’re getting this, Cody. But the shit has hit the fan. They know you’re gone and where you are. You’re fucked, and so am I. I never thought it would come to this. Call me.”

There were no more messages from Larry on his satellite phone.

Cody withdrew the last cigarette from his pack and lit it and inhaled it as if it were angel’s breath. Either Larry was the best actor in the world, or his messages were genuine. He leaned slightly toward the latter.

31

It had been thirty minutes since Cody thought he’d heard gunshots. Two of them, two distant heavy booms, far up ahead of him. If the wind had not died to a whisper a few minutes before, he thought, he might not have heard them at all.

They’d come just seconds apart. He’d reined in his gelding and cocked his head and listened further but there was silence. And slowly, with the sound of water pouring over smooth river rocks, the breeze picked back up in the treetops and returned with a whispery white noise just loud enough to swallow up any more distant sounds.

Since then, he’d questioned himself as to what he’d actually heard. The forest was full of creatures and sounds. Having grown up around hunting and guiding with his father and uncle in Montana, he’d never put any stock into the old saw, “If a tree falls in the forest and there’s no one to hear it…” Because in his experience, nature could be raucous, sloppy, and loud. Especially in a place like Yellowstone that teemed with large-bodied ungulates and bizarre natural phenomena. Although gunshots were the most likely, the faraway sounds could have been trees falling, branches snapping, rocks being dislodged, or thunderclaps. He’d heard that big grizzlies searching for grubs to eat were known to knock over big rotten trees and uproot small ones, and moose sometimes scratched themselves so vigorously on trunks and outcroppings that they knocked them over. Plus there was the internal pounding coming from his own body.

He wished his head was clear and his guts and muscles weren’t screaming for nicotine to bring them back to level. Blood that seemed thin and panicked and needy coursed through his ears and whumped at his temples, trying to burst out of his veins as if they were a ruptured hydraulic hose. His vision had constricted and he saw black curtains closing and cutting down his peripheral vision. He knew he was capable, right then, of doing just about anything for a cigarette or a shot of bourbon or both. He cursed his dependency and his weakness while at the same time justifying it to himself because of the situation he was in.

At the time that he’d heard the sounds he’d withdrawn the AR-15 from his saddle scabbard and jacked in a.223 cartridge and laid it over his pommel. He kept riding while the churned-up trail of hoofprints turned deliberately off the main trail toward a copse of trees to his right.

That’s where he saw the red bandana tied to a branch and wondered why Jed McCarthy had left the trail and where he was taking his clients. And why someone had left a marker.

At times the new trail was so narrow Cody had to brace the rifle butt on his thigh with the muzzle pointed up so it wouldn’t get caught in a tree branch or overgrown foliage on the sides of the trail that seemed to reach out to grasp at his arms and knees. Gipper walked deliberately and haltingly as Cody pushed forward, and he had to keep nudging and kicking him to keep moving. He knew sometimes horses could sense danger ahead, but he also knew horses were sometimes simply overly cautious and tentative. He found that his mouth had become dry as his heart raced.

The lodgepole pine trees had closed in around him. They weren’t tall but they were dense and so closely packed it would be difficult for a man to walk through them without turning to the side. It had been so long since the trail had been used, long silky remnants of spiders’ webs, broken by Jed’s party ahead of him, fluttered like ghosts from boughs over his head. It was as if he were riding through a shroud.

He heard a grunt, and he thought: Bear.

Gipper heard it, too, and the horse planted his feet and leaned backwards with his heavy haunches. Gipper’s ears cocked forward and his nostrils opened and he snorted either a warning or a cry of alarm. Cody brought the rifle up to his shoulder one-handed, aiming it vaguely ahead of him, keeping a hold on the reins with his left hand. The packhorse, oblivious to what was going on, walked into Gipper’s hindquarters and jostled Cody’s shaky aim.

There was another grunt, this time closer, and a heavy footfall. It was coming toward him, whatever it was.

Cody didn’t know whether to dismount or stay in the saddle. He longed for solid footing, but knew he couldn’t slip gracefully to the ground and not risk losing control of the horses. If he was on the ground and they decided to panic and run off, he was stuck. The rifle just seemed to be in the way.

There was a flash of color through the thin trunks ahead. Beige and red.

A low moan, “Naugh.”

“Who’s there?” Cody called out. His mouth was so dry his voice cracked. “Who is it? Identify yourself. I’m a cop.”

A man on foot lurched into view, startling Gipper further and the gelding crow-hopped, fouling Cody’s aim. As he tried to gain his balance in the saddle, he dropped the reins to the ground. The only thing that stopped Gipper from turning completely around was the wall of thin trees on both sides of the trail.

“Easy,” Cody said, as much to himself as to Gipper, “Easy…”

The man, an African American wearing jeans, a once-beige shirt soaked almost entirely in glossy red blood, and a look of horror and anguish, cried out again and pitched forward onto his knees on the trail.

Clumsily, with both of his horses stutter-stepping, Cody dismounted and managed to gather up Gipper’s reins. While he was tying his horse to the trunk of a thick aspen tree, the packhorse jerked back and the lead rope unraveled from Gipper’s saddle horn. Cody reached out for it as it pulled away, missed it, and he stood seething and confused for a few seconds, watching the packhorse gallop away back down the trail. He could see chunks of dirt flying from the horse’s hooves and the panniers flapping hard, spooking the horse further.

The drumbeat of the hooves and occasional snap of dry twigs faded away. Cody spat out a string of curses and kicked at the ground.

Then he turned toward the injured man.

Never in his career had Cody confronted a dying man. In nearly every case, the victim was already dead-in many cases for days-and Cody could observe with clinical detachment and dark humor. Bodies were no more than heavy wet bags of organs, muscle, tissue, fat, and bone bound together by a taut wrapping of skin. He studied those bags for likely offered evidence of what method was used to douse the flame of a soul inside.

Cody sat on the trail. He’d never cradled a stranger’s head in his lap before while the man cried real tears and choked on pints of his own blood when he tried to speak.

“Jesus,” Cody said, elevating the man’s head by raising his own leg, trying to find a position where the victim wouldn’t have to make the gargling sound. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

The man shook his head quickly but couldn’t form words yet. He was still lucid despite appearances. But, Cody knew, he wouldn’t be for long. The victim was bleeding out before his eyes and there wasn’t a single thing either of them could do about it. Bull Mitchell’s field first-aid kit had been in the panniers of the packhorse. But even if the horse hadn’t run away, Cody wasn’t sure he could have done anything to save this man’s life.

He’d known the end of this story as he approached him minutes ago. There was a hole the size of a fist in the man’s back, the exit wound. It was inches deep and pulsating. Cody dropped down to the trail and turned the man over. The victim had watched, his eyes clear and sharp. The entry wound was the size of a nickel and it was framed by a hole in the fabric of his shirt. The hole in the cloth, just below the breast pocket on the left side of the victim’s chest, was burned black on the edges in an outline that resembled a blooming flower. The reason for the pattern was powder burns-meaning that the shot had been made practically point-blank. The weapon had been of large caliber. Cody saw no other bullet wounds but there didn’t have to be any.

Cody said, “I’m not going to lie and tell you you’ll be okay.”

The man closed and reopened his eyes. Not out of disappointment, but a means of signaling Cody that he understood.

Cody could feel blood from the exit wound soaking into the denim of his trousers. It was warm.

“Can you hear me?” Cody said.

Again, the man blinked.

“Are you with the pack trip led by Jed McCarthy?”

Blink. Yes.

“Is there an older boy on the trip? Named Justin? Seventeen, eighteen?”

Yes.

“Is he okay?”

Yes.

“Man, I don’t know what to do. There’s no way to stop the bleeding.”

Yes.

“Did you see who shot you?”

Yes.

“Can you try to talk? Can you please try to tell me what happened and who did it?”

Yes.

The man closed his eyes and swallowed painfully. Cody looked skyward for a fresh thought or a signal that would give him-and the gunshot victim-some kind of hope. Or something he could do to make this poor man more comfortable.

He felt the man die. It wasn’t a sound or a movement, but a sudden absence of firmness in his lap. Cody looked down. “Not now,” Cody pleaded. “Not before you tell me what happened.”

The man’s eyes were still open but there was nothing behind them. His mouth was slightly open and red inside, the color of candied cherries. Cody reached up and closed the eyes, pulling the lids and hoping they’d stay that way. They did.

Cody rolled the body off his legs. In death, it seemed twice as heavy as before. He stood unsteadily. His muscles ached from riding and he was covered with a man’s sacred lifeblood; his jeans were black and sticky and orange half-moon-shaped pine needles stuck to the denim. He bent over and dug through the victim’s clothing and found a wallet and flipped it open. André Alan Russell, resident of Manhattan. Cody remembered the name from the file he took from Jed’s office.

As he’d done earlier in the day, he photographed Russell’s body and wounds, knowing while he did it that the shooting had happened someplace else and this wasn’t the crime scene. He wondered how far Russell had come from where he’d been shot. He dragged Russell’s body off the trail. Before tucking it in beneath a massive fallen tree and covering it the best he could with heavy logs and branches, Cody looked skyward for a moment, then looted all of Russell’s pockets looking for a package of cigarettes that wasn’t there. Cursing, Cody then covered the body. The cover wouldn’t prevent predators from finding it-probably nothing would-but he hoped he could return with help to get the body out before it was torn up.

He kept Russell’s New York driver’s license but cached the wallet and the contents of the man’s pockets in the crook of the aspen tree he’d used to keep Gipper around.

Since Mitchell’s GPS was gone and he couldn’t get a reading of coordinates, Cody found a T-shirt in his saddlebag and ripped it up and tied one strip to the cover where the body was and another on a low overhanging branch at the trail to mark the location. He scribbled in his spiral notebook what he’d found and what he’d done with the body and Russell’s possessions.

When he was through he stood and wiped sweat from his face and took off his hat to cool the top of his head. He could see no trace of Russell’s body beneath the cover he’d put on it, but he knew it was there. And the image of Russell’s last attempt to speak would be with him forever.

Back on Gipper, Cody contemplated turning around to try and retrieve the packhorse, but he feared the animal was still running and was miles away. He couldn’t afford to let more time elapse between him and Justin.

He nudged his horse and Gipper reluctantly stepped back on the trail. As he walked his mount, Cody reached behind him into his saddlebag for the satellite phone. He’d thought long and hard about the situation he was in and had decided he couldn’t take any more chances on his own.

Because now there were two bodies, and he had no reason to think there wouldn’t be more.

He turned on the phone and watched the display screen. It was working, but there was no signal. He looked up; the tree cover was too thick. He’d need to wait until he rode into a clearing where the phone could hook up with a satellite. Clipping the phone to his belt next to the Sig Sauer, he cautiously rode on. He could smell Russell’s blood on his clothing and it mixed with the odor of his own fear.

Things were happening ahead of him. He was hours and miles behind the pack trip, but closing in. He couldn’t wrap his mind around the motivation for the murders but it was obvious whomever was behind it was entering a new stage. The killings leading up to the pack trip departure had been meticulously planned to resemble accidents or suicides. A good deal of thought had gone into them.

Tristan Glode’s body had been well hidden. It was possible, Cody thought, the murder had taken place out of view of the others on the trip and they may not even know it had occurred. But Russell was different. He’d somehow managed to get away and he’d not been pursued, probably because the killer knew his victim would bleed out. But unlike the murders preceding Russell’s, there was no indication of careful planning or execution. Russell had not been chased down and disposed of to hide the crime.

Which meant, for one reason or another, that the situation had grown desperate. Desperate men, Cody knew, were capable of anything.

As was he.

A few minutes went by and Cody checked the phone to see if he’d acquired a signal yet so he could call Larry. He looked up ahead of him and saw a pair of splayed boots that belonged to a third victim.

Gipper woofed and started to backtrack furiously.

Filtered sun shimmered on their coats and he could see at least one massive round head and the humps on their backs and the bulge of heavy muscles beneath the fur.

He’d have to fight off a feeding grizzly sow and her two cubs to identify the body.

32

With Gipper in a panic-backtracking blindly, woofing, eyes white and almond-shaped, ears pinned back-Cody jerked on the reins and tried to stay in the saddle. He knew his reaction was as out-of-control as his horse’s and he wasn’t helping the situation, but he didn’t know what to do. The big brown grizzly sow looked up with a mouthful of red meat. The two cubs-one auburn, the other brown like his mother-scrambled back over the body and fell in behind her giant haunches, peering out at him with black eyes.

Cody managed to crank Gipper’s head to the side and stop him from scrambling long enough to slide his right boot out of the stirrup and swing down to the ground with his rifle. Gipper pranced as if he was electrically charged and pinned Cody to a tree trunk, crushing the wind out of him, then crow-hopped back toward the trail. Cody slipped off the side of the horse, stunned and gasping for breath, and felt the reins being pulled away through his fingers.

Gipper was gone, crashing through the timber straight away from him, bouncing through the tight grouping of trees, leaving behind showers of broken branches and pine needles. He could hear his horse grunting and feel the hammering of his hooves on the forest floor through the soles of his boots.

Cody swung the muzzle of the AR-15 toward the body and the bears. The cubs had turned their heads away to the right, transfixed by the panicked run of the horse as it crashed through the trees. The sow, though, locked her eyes with Cody and stretched out, guarding the body with her baseball-mitt-sized paws. The long red strip of flesh swung back and forth in her jaws.

“Get away,” Cody hollered, fitting the butt plate of his rifle to his shoulder, aiming down the peep sights and fitting the front sight on her arched left eyebrow. “Get the hell away from there.”

The auburn cub switched his attention to Cody and stood up. He was only three and a half feet tall, a nascent miniature of his mother. His front paws curled down and rested almost comically on his bulging belly. Although he wanted to, he didn’t look formidable except for the blood on his snout.

The brown cub mewled and shot out from behind his mother on all fours, scrambling over the body, straight toward Cody.

“Get back, little guy,” Cody bellowed, stepping toward the charging cub and stomping his lead foot while fixing his sights on him. “GET BACK!”

The cub came within ten feet before stopping abruptly. It was a deliberate false charge, a bluff move apparently hardwired into grizzly bears that often worked, but Cody refused to run and wouldn’t fire and reveal himself unless he had to. Because he knew if he harmed the cub the sow would be all over him before the ejected brass hit the ground. The.223 rounds from his rifle might slow her, but they wouldn’t likely stop her.

Standoff.

He couldn’t run because the grizzlies could chase him down. Even the cubs had flashing claws and teeth.

Gesturing with the rifle, he advanced several steps as aggressively as he could manage. He screamed at them and bellowed for them to leave and ended up coughing raggedly in what ended as a series of rough barks.

The brown cub wheeled and ran back to his mother. As soon as he reached her, the sow snorted and jumped back from the body, then spun and crashed away into the timber, followed inches away by the brown cub. The auburn cub remained standing on his hind legs.

“You better go, too,” Cody growled.

The auburn cub seemed to suddenly realize he was alone, and he fell to all fours, yelped, and scampered into the woods.

Cody lowered the rifle, closed his eyes, and let out a long chattering breath. He looked down to see if he’d fouled himself and he was relieved to find out he hadn’t. Over the next minute, he felt his heartbeat slow down. He propped the rifle against a tree trunk and rubbed his face with clammy hands, thinking that the sensation of receding adrenaline was not unlike the first stages of a hangover.

He sensed the bears had not gone far. As he approached the body he held the rifle out in front of him and swept the timber on both sides with his eyes. He could still feel his heart beating hard, and the tips of his fingers and toes ached for nicotine to stop the nerve ends from jangling.

He winced. The smell of fresh blood and exposed stomach contents was acrid. Shards of flesh were ripped from clean white bones and the pile reminded him of the aftermath of a Thanksgiving turkey.

Trying not to look at the mutilation directly, he kept his head to the side while he rolled the body over. The underside was not as torn up. In the back pocket of the trousers he found a wallet. Inside was an EasyPayXpress Unlimited MetroCard for the New York subway system, $480 in cash, assorted credit and business cards, family photos of a very large and dark-haired clan, and a New York State driver’s license identifying the victim as Anthony Joseph D’Amato.

D’Amato’s clothes had largely been torn away and they’d bunched beneath his back. Cody rooted through the shredded clothing and felt something crackle. It was the familiar and fantastically welcome sound of crinkling cellophane, and Cody dropped manically to his knees and ripped at the bundle with both hands.

Within a slit and blood-spattered double Ziploc bag was a crushed, half-empty pack of Marlboro Lights.

“D’Amato,” Cody said, “bless you for being a secret smoker.”

It was obvious one of the grizzlies had swiped the plastic bag with claws that sliced through the cigarettes to the skin below. Cody rooted through the pack, breathing in the sweet smell of powdered tobacco, and found three intact cigarettes. The longest one had a small smear of red on the side of it.

He looked at it for a second and conceded that yes, he was smoking a dead man’s last bloodstained cigarettes.

He lit up and sat back and inhaled, looking around for the bears, half expecting them to come barreling out of the forest like demons to rip his throat out while his defenses were down.

And he wasn’t sure it would be the worst way to go because at least it would be epic and quick.

He left the body of D’Amato on the trail until he could figure out what to do with it. He had no rope to hang it, and it would be a matter of time before the bears came back. His camera was gone with Gipper.

Cody bushwhacked through the brush in the general direction his horse had run. As he shouldered through tree trunks and stepped over downed timber while smoking his cigarette, he felt it was getting lighter. He walked toward the light and within ten minutes stepped out of the trees into a small grassy clearing.

The satellite phone had a signal. He punched the number for the cell phone Larry had said to call. Reception was clear and he heard it ring on the other end. Four, five, six rings. No voice mail prompt. Cody let it ring, figuring Larry would eventually hear it and pick up.

While he waited he slowly pivoted in the meadow so he could keep his eyes out in every direction. He held the AR-15 muzzle down in his right hand. The safety was off. There were no signs of bears, or wolves, or his horse, or whomever had killed Tristan Glode, Russell, and D’Amato. And before them, the string of recovering alcoholics including Hank Winters.

Two minutes later, Cody was surprised when he heard a click through his earpiece. Someone was on the other end.

“Larry?” Cody said.

Breathing.

“Larry, is that you?”

No other background sound. Just rhythmic breathing. Cody checked the display on his phone to make sure he dialed the correct number. He had. A phone rang somewhere in the background. It was a familiar ring.

“Who is this? Can you hear me?”

The breathing quieted and there was silence but the line was still open. Cody recognized the action as when someone places their hand over the microphone to muffle sound.

“Speak to me,” Cody said. “Say something. I’m calling on official police business. This is an emergency.”

After a beat, the line was disconnected.

Battling doubts and tendrils of cold fear rising up from his lower stomach, he punched in the numbers again. He did it deliberately, making sure he didn’t misdial.

The recorded message said the number was no longer available.

Cody lowered his handset and stared into the sky. It hadn’t been Larry, he was sure of it. And it hadn’t been a stranger answering an unfamiliar phone, like if Larry had inadvertently left the phone unattended on his desk or at a restaurant.

Whoever answered kept quiet until Cody identified himself. Until Cody had spoken, revealing himself. As if he’d been waiting for the call for quite some time.

And the ring in the background-before it was muffled-was as familiar to him as the sound of his alarm clock. He knew it because it was how the obsolete phones rang in the Lewis and Clark County Sheriff’s Department headquarters.

Deep in the timber, in the direction of the trail, he heard a branch snap.

Cody kept the satellite phone on and clipped it back on his belt. He squinted toward the wall of trees to the east where the sound had come from.

There was the click of steel on rock, a distinctive sound. Then the snort of a horse.

Gipper?

Wrong direction, Cody said to himself while raising the AR-15. He wished he had his gear because he very much wanted to replace the short magazine in his rifle with a thirty-rounder.

He heard the squeak of leather and another footfall. His mouth went dry.

A horse was coming. Maybe more than one. It was approaching in a deliberate manner that meant someone was in the saddle.

He lowered himself into a shooter’s stance and took a deep breath.

33

As Jed approached Camp Two walking his horse behind him, the conversations stopped abruptly.

“My horse went lame,” he said. “I didn’t get very far on him before he pulled up hurt.”

“So you didn’t find them?” Knox asked, distressed.

“Didn’t get that far,” Jed said.

“Jesus,” Knox cried to the others, “is anything going to go right at some point?”

Jed knew he had to extricate himself and turn their attention to other matters. He thought, Get out ahead of the situation and take over in the lead again.

He was heartened that no one actually confronted him as he entered the camp. Although Dakota, Rachel Mina, and the girl Gracie seemed to view him with challenge and fear-fear was okay, challenge wasn’t-none of them said a word. Which meant they were ceding control of the situation to him, at least a little. He shot a glance at the dad. Angry fathers could be a force to themselves. He hadn’t expected Ted Sullivan to take him on and the man didn’t.

Whatever they’d been saying about him was suddenly off-limits now that he’d shown up. It used to bother him a little when he’d overhear his clients criticizing him or the decisions he made, but it didn’t anymore as long as it didn’t evolve into open revolt, which it never had. Jed understood how groups worked. A bunch of strangers thrown together sought common ground, and that common ground was often the outfitter who’d brought them together. He was the common denominator among clients of different social strata and interests. So in order to converse, they’d have to find something to either celebrate or bitch about, and that usually turned out to be him, one way or another.

Jed said to everyone, “Look, folks, I know you’re all worried about what’s going on. It’s crazy to have lost those people, and I’m damned sorry it happened. I’m also damned sorry I took off after them on a horse with a bad wheel.” He gestured toward his bay.

“What I need to ask you folks,” he said, “is to remain calm. Please remain calm. I can kind of tell there are all sorts of conspiracy tales flying around and all sorts of speculation. That’s natural. But you’re here in this fine camp with plenty of food and comfort. There’s no reason to be worried about anything.”

Knox stepped out from behind the kitchen setup. “Jed, I’m worried as hell about my friends. I wish I would have gone with you to find them.”

He said to Knox, “I’m going back after them but I’ve got to switch horses. I need a better mount.”

Suddenly, Rachel Mina asked, “What did you do to them?”

It felt as though a shard of glass had been shoved under his skin.

“Excuse me?” he said, still maintaining his smile.

Her eyes flashed. “I said what did you do to them? Tristan, Wilson, Drey, and Tony? Did you hurt them and leave them back there?”

Jed slowly removed his hat and stared at the inside of it. He ran his fingertips along the leather sweatband inside, as if testing for irregularities. He felt his stomach contract and it hurt a little to breathe.

All eyes were on him.

“Ma’am,” he said after a beat, “I don’t have any idea at all what you’re talking about or what you’re asking me.”

From across the camp, Ted Sullivan said, “Jeez, Rachel…” He was aghast.

“You heard me,” she said to Jed. “You’re picking us off one by one. I want to know why. I want to know what your game is and what you’re after. I mean, look at us. We’re no threat to you-”

“Jesus, Rachel,” Ted Sullivan said to her. Then to Jed, “Man, I’m really sorry. I don’t know what got into her.” He strode across the camp with his arms out toward her.

Sullivan said, “Rachel, really, I’ve never known you to jump to conclusions like this.” As he approached her she turned, said, “Ted, stay away. Don’t touch me.”

Sullivan’s two daughters watched the scene open-mouthed. Jed couldn’t tell which side they were on.

“This is getting out of hand,” Walt Franck said, slapping his thighs from where he sat on a log and using his hands to push himself to a standing position. “This isn’t helpful in any way.” He gestured toward Jed and said to Rachel, “This man has spent the best part of a day trying to track down a couple of his clients who left voluntarily in the middle of the night.

“If I can fault him for anything, it’s for letting Drey and Tony take off on their own this morning to try and make things right. But given the circumstances,” Walt nodded toward Donna Glode, who looked back nonplussed, “I would have probably done the same thing. But no one threw them out, or pressured them to leave. To accuse him of…” He couldn’t say it. He shook his head as if ridding his thoughts of the unpleasant words. “It’s just crazy,” he said.

“He’s right, Rachel,” Sullivan told her. “You’re not being helpful or positive. Please, let’s take a breath and calm down.” He grasped her by the arm and tried to spin her away, but she shrugged him off.

“She might be right,” Gracie said, looking straight at her dad. Ted Sullivan dismissed his daughter with an angry wave. The girl’s face turned crimson.

Jed said bluntly to Rachel, “I ain’t going to lose my temper here, lady. I know it’s a stressful situation. But making accusations with no proof at all isn’t helping anything.”

He looked around the camp for assurance.

And he got it from everybody, he thought. The only people who wouldn’t meet his gaze were Gracie and Rachel Mina. Dakota looked back, but she did so with an upward tilt of her chin and slitted eyes. Like she was making some kind of decision about him.

A beat of silence, then two. Rachel Mina was being led away by Ted Sullivan. Jed watched them go, and noticed that after they’d cleared the camp and were in the trees Sullivan tried to hug her and reason with her, but she pulled away and stomped off alone. After she left, Sullivan stood in the trees with his head down and his shoulders slumped, a sad portrait of a weak but useful man, Jed thought. In a moment, Sullivan turned on his heel and walked the opposite way from where Rachel Mina had gone. Probably to break down and cry, Jed figured.

Jed turned his attention to Dakota. “Please take this bay down to the corral and pick me out the best horse to ride and get it saddled up so I can go after our wayward boys. I’ve got to gather some more gear because I may be back pretty late. I’m not coming back without those strays.”

“Thank you, Jed,” Knox said.

Jed nodded, in his best friendly-like reaction.

He walked the bay to Dakota, who still eyed him coolly. She took the reins, as instructed. That’s all he needed from her at the moment.

Gracie, Danielle, and Justin walked side by side toward the collection of tents on the grass. Justin and Danielle were holding hands, but Danielle seemed distracted and vacant.

“Those people are just making me crazy,” Justin said, “They’re turning on each other instead of pulling together. I wish we could all go home now.”

He seemed to be waiting for agreement from Danielle, which didn’t come.

Danielle said to Gracie, “I can’t believe Dad acted like that. He really dissed you, didn’t he?”

“Mmmm,” Gracie said. “He dissed Rachel, too.”

Danielle said, “I thought he might take Rachel’s side and yours, too. I mean, he’s our dad. You don’t want your own dad to side with the other guy.”

“Mmmm.”

“I guess that’s one thing,” Justin said. “My dad probably would stand with me. He’s like that. I guess I never really thought about it before.”

“Lucky you,” Gracie said.

“You know what?” Danielle said, letting go of Justin’s hand and stepping in front of him next to Gracie.

Gracie said, “What?”

“I’m not sure we can trust him.”

“Mmmm.”

“I don’t,” Danielle said. “Not anymore.”

Dakota led Jed’s bay to the temporary electric corral. As she walked the horse the voices from the camp faded behind her. Jed was holding court; explaining to Knox, Walt, and Donna how he was going to go back down the trail and come back with Drey and Tony, at least. Saying he couldn’t promise Tristan and frankly didn’t care all that much about Wilson although he’d like to get all his horses back. That he’d likely be back deep into the night or early next morning at the latest. Explaining to Knox, once again, that he didn’t need his help.

As Dakota turned off the electric fence charger and parted the string, she glanced up the hill toward the camp. Knox, Donna, and Walt were still there. Jed had apparently gone to his tent to retrieve gear or clothing he would need for a longer trip. Rachel and Ted were off quarrelling-or avoiding each other-somewhere.

Her eyes swept the trees and the tents. The three teenagers were by themselves, walking away. No one was watching her from the camp.

She picked up her pace and practically dragged the bay along behind her. The horse limped badly but she couldn’t care about that now. The grass was teeming with grasshoppers and they shot away like sparks through the air as she crossed the meadow. A plump one landed on her left breast and she brushed it away. There was a thick spruce in the middle of the makeshift corral and she led the horse behind it, so the trunk was between her and the people in the camp.

Before opening Jed’s saddle panniers, she looked around again. She was in the clear.

She fumbled with the straps of the dual panniers and loosened the top flap. Stretching on the toes of her boots, she pulled the lip of the bags down and peered inside. Jed’s handgun was on top. She thought she got a whiff of gunpowder.

She pushed his rain gear aside and found his briefcase on the bottom of the pannier. Grasping it by the worn handle, she pulled it up and out. Jed’s rolled yellow raincoat came out with it and fell to her feet.

Using the back of the bay like the surface of a desk, she placed the briefcase on it and unsnapped the hasps. They sprung up with two solid clicks.

The manila folder she’d glimpsed the night before in their tent was on top of his other materials and she could see the corners of the printouts peeking beyond the stiff file cover.

She took a deep breath and centered the file folder and reached for the smudged tab to open it.

The white flash in front of her eyes was not another grasshopper, but the blade of a knife wielded by someone who pressed into her back, pinning her to the side of the bay. It sliced so deeply through the flesh of her throat she felt the steel scrape on bone.

34

The sounds in the trees became more pronounced; twigs cracking, the click of hooves against rock, the squeak of leather on leather, the nickering of horses. He felt more than saw the presence of heavy-bodied beings approaching en masse. Cody thought, How many of them are there?

He glanced down at his rifle. Likely not enough bullets. And if they were armed? He might need to pull his Sig Sauer when the rifle was empty.

Then a deep-throated shout: “Cody?” The voice carried through the trees.

Cody closed his eyes and took a deep breath and stood up. “Bull?”

“Where the hell are you?” Mitchell grumbled.

“Here. Ahead of you, I think. In a clearing.”

“Gotcha,” Mitchell said, “so don’t shoot me. I’m coming toward your voice.”

“I won’t,” Cody said. “Who is with you? How many of you are there?”

“Just one,” Mitchell said.

Cody didn’t know if that meant just Mitchell or another. Nevertheless, he could feel heavy weights release from the tops of his shoulders. “I’ve got to say I’m glad you came back.”

“It’s taking me a while,” Mitchell grumbled, “seeing I’ve been gathering up loose horses for miles.”

Cody lowered his rifle and waited. He could hear Mitchell and the horses coming, picking their way through the timber and brush, but he couldn’t see them yet.

Finally, a horse head with a white star blaze on its forehead pushed through the brush. Mitchell’s horse.

“There you are,” Mitchell said, and Cody could see him. He was a big man but he sat the horse as if they were conjoined, and Cody had trouble discerning where the horse stopped and Bull Mitchell began.

“Damn, I’m glad to see you,” Cody said. “Why’d you come back?”

“Hell, I don’t know,” Mitchell said. “As Hank the Cowdog says, there’s a thin line between heroism and stupidity.”

Cody found himself grinning at the answer. “Then you’ll probably want your gun back.”

“Yup.”

Mitchell was leading Gipper and the packhorse that had run away. Behind them, tied with a series of lead ropes, were four more horses. The first three had empty saddles.

The last one, a gray, had a rider. Cody was surprised and instinctively raised the rifle again. A dark man, hatless, glowered back at him. So there was another. The man rode oddly, shifting around subtly as if he were trying to maintain his balance, as if he were simply cargo. That’s when Cody noticed the man’s hands were cuffed behind him and he’d been lashed by the waist and legs to the saddle with rope he’d last seen looped on Mitchell’s saddle.

“Says his name is Wilson,” Mitchell said. “I don’t care if you shoot him because he’s been nothing but trouble. But I was thinking you might want to talk with him, first.”

“K. W. Wilson,” Cody said, “fifty-eight, Salt Lake City. Or, as I like to call you, Suspect Number One.”

Wilson didn’t react. Cody noticed the contusion under Wilson’s left eye and his bloody and fattened lower lip.

“Doesn’t like cheese,” Cody said, remembering Wilson’s trip registration.

“I had to thump him a couple times,” Mitchell said, patting the butt of his rifle. “He didn’t want to work with me very much.”

Cody thought Wilson didn’t give off any indication of fear-or innocence. Like so many criminals he’d encountered in lockup over the years, Wilson’s bearing was a dismissive mix of arrogance and regret. Not regret at what he’d been picked up for, but regret he’d been caught.

Cody nodded. He wondered if he was meeting the killer of Hank Winters and the others.

“I found a couple of things on him you might find interesting,” Mitchell said, leaning back and digging into his saddlebag. He produced a six-inch Buck knife in a sheath and a stubby handgun. He handed them both butt-first to Cody.

Cody inspected the revolver, a snub-nosed.38 Special. It was a double-action Taurus six-shot revolver made of stainless steel with rubber grips. It had a two-inch barrel. He sniffed the muzzle and cracked open the cylinder.

“Two rounds have been fired recently,” Cody said to Mitchell, who nodded.

Cody snapped the cylinder home, spun it, and pointed the gun at Wilson. Wilson didn’t flinch. Cody said, “This is an odd choice of weapon to bring up here. It’s not big enough for bears and hard to hit anything at a distance because of the short barrel and fixed sights. I used to carry one of these as a backup in an ankle holster in Denver, but I knew this kind of piece is strictly for self-defense and it’s only good for close-in work. Meaning,” he said to Mitchell without taking his eyes off Wilson, “he was right on top of D’Amato and Russell when he shot them. Probably a couple of feet away, max. They knew him well enough to get close. I doubt it was an ambush. He probably looked right into their eyes before he pulled the trigger.”

He slid the gun into his belt and drew the knife out of the sheath. The blade had been wiped clean but there was dark gummy residue where the fixed blade met the brass guard. Cody dug some out with his fingernail and tasted it. “Blood,” Cody said, then spat it out. To Wilson, “This is what you used on Tristan Glode, then. More close-in work.”

He circled around Wilson and came up from behind him. He could sense the man start to stiffen, possibly anticipating the stab of the knife. Cody reached up and pressed the point of the blade to Wilson’s spinal column just to make him jump. But what he was interested in was an intimate view of Wilson’s bound hands.

“You’ve got blood under the fingernails of your right hand,” Cody said. “Looks just like the blood on this knife. There’s blood spatter on your cuff, too, it looks like.”

“Oh,” Mitchell said, digging something silver and square out of the front snap pocket of his shirt and flipping it through the air to Cody. “Something else. Check this out.”

Cody fumbled the catch and reached down in the grass for the object. “I was hoping it was a pack of cigarettes,” Cody said.

“Nope,” Mitchell said, “Wilson’s camera. You might want to take a look at some of the shots in there to see if there’s anyone you recognize. While you do that I’m gonna tie these horses up and get Wilson down.”

“I’ll help you,” Cody said, doing the math. He assumed the three riderless horses had belonged to Tristan Glode, D’Amato, and Russell.

Mitchell swung off and put his hand up to Cody. “Stay there, if you don’t mind, pard. The only thing you seem to know about horses is how to lose them.”

Cody shrugged. “True enough.” He pushed buttons and flicked toggles on the digital camera until the display came alive. The first dozen shots were obviously from the departure area. People milled around eyeing horses, their faces mixes of excitement and anticipation as they got ready to get under way. There were vehicles in the background and glimpses of a long horse trailer with JED MCCARTHY’S WILDERNESS ADVENTURES painted along the side.

As he advanced through the photos he tried to match up faces with the names and descriptions he’d memorized from the file he’d borrowed.

The cowboy with the mustache was obviously Jed himself, shadowed by a younger woman in a floppy sweat-stained hat. He recalled her name: Dakota Hill.

The older stiff couple were the Glodes. Cody recognized Tristan and winced. He’d been a regal man in bearing with striking silver hair, cool blue eyes, and a prominent chin.

The father and his two teenage daughters were the Sullivans; Ted, Danielle, and Gracie. The youngest girl appeared to be much more animated than the older girl, who looked bored.

A single woman, open face, attractive, looking away from the camera as if she was furious about being photographed by him. Rachel Mina. Her face reminded him of the glare Jenny had once given him when he photographed her as she stepped out of the shower. It was the last time he ever did anything like that again. Cody wondered why Suspect Number Two was so angry at Wilson.

Three men posed on their horses like the characters from the movie Three Amigos. The shot would have been amusing, Cody thought, if he hadn’t seen D’Amato’s and Russell’s mangled remains a couple of hours before.

And there were Walt and Justin, sitting side by side on horseback. Cody felt his heart race. Justin looked older and more mature than when he’d seen him last. He had a weariness in his eyes and an easy smile as he looked over at Walt in the photo.

Cody whispered, “Yes.” Until that second, he hadn’t been absolutely sure Justin was on the trip.

The last three shots were taken in deep timber. Although not focused well, Cody could see they were of the two Sullivan girls. One was using a camp latrine.

He looked up as Mitchell untied Wilson from the saddle. Wilson stared straight ahead.

Mitchell said, “I found this guy about a mile from where I left you. Apparently, he’d gotten off his horse to pee and the horse ran off. I seem to be surrounded by goddamned amateurs. I heard him yelling obscenities and I sneaked into the trees. I finally found him chasing his horse around a meadow with that pistol in his hand, like the horse was gonna be threatened by him. He’s as good a horseman as you.”

Cody studied Wilson’s face while Mitchell talked. It was inscrutable.

“I watched him for a while. His horse finally stopped trotting at the edge of the meadow and Wilson here walked right up to it from behind. He didn’t know that when a horse pins its ears back and positions his butt toward you you need to get ready for a kick,” Mitchell said, and chuckled.

Mitchell said, “Laid Wilson out. Caught him right in the chest. I rode out there to see if he was okay and he woke up going for his popgun. So I had to thump him a couple times. I took the liberty of borrowing a set of handcuffs from your gear. I hope you have a key somewhere.”

“Maybe,” Cody said.

Wilson reacted with a jerk of his mouth to the side when he heard that. Mitchell dismounted and tied his horse to the trunk of a tree with a lead rope. Now that he’d climbed down from his mount he looked old and he moved like a stiff old man, Cody thought. Mitchell limped down the line of horses he’d gathered to the gray. When Mitchell got the ropes untied he slid Wilson off by grasping the back of his belt and pulling. Wilson’s boots thumped onto solid ground.

Mitchell said, “I’m officially turning him over to you now while I get these critters some grain and water them.”

Mitchell put his big hand in the middle of Wilson’s back and shoved. Wilson stumbled toward Cody but managed not to trip and fall.

Cody said to him, “Is my son okay? His name is Justin. He’s seventeen.”

Wilson stared back, noncommittal.

Cody studied Wilson’s face for any kind of tell, but the man’s eyes were black, still, and unyielding. He took it as an encouraging sign, assuming there would have been at least a flinch or glimmer of reaction if something had happened to Justin.

“So that’s the way you want to play it,” Cody said. He noted the twin horseshoe impressions on the front of Wilson’s shirt where he’d been kicked. As Cody walked up to him he imagined Wilson’s chest must be badly bruised. Although the man was two inches taller, Cody was thicker. “I heard the shots and found Russell and D’Amato,” Cody said. “We located Tristan Glode’s body earlier. You’ve left a hell of a mess.”

Wilson looked back through heavy-lidded eyes.

Cody gestured toward a pedestal-like rock that jutted out of the grass. “Sit.”

Wilson didn’t move until Cody prodded him with the muzzle of the rifle, then he did so grudgingly. Wilson grunted and settled on the rock and looked at Cody with bored contempt.

Before speaking, Cody made sure Mitchell was out of earshot. He said to Wilson, “Do you know who I am?”

No response.

Cody felt himself smile as his demons took over. He said, “Do you know who I am?”

Wilson didn’t even blink.

“Let me tell you who I am, then. I’m Cody, and I’m an alcoholic.”

Wilson twitched. At last, a chord was struck.

“Thought so,” Cody said, and swung the butt of the rifle into Wilson’s face. He could hear the muffled snap as the man’s nose broke and feel the cartilage flatten through the stock of the rifle. Wilson cried out and tumbled over backwards off the rock into the grass.

Cody bounded forward and straddled the rock and pressed the muzzle of his AR-15 into the flesh between Wilson’s eyes, which had misted from the pain. Blood coursed down the sides of Wilson’s face from the twin spouts of his nostrils. Cody growled, “Let me tell you who I am. I’m the scariest fucking cop you’ll ever meet. My son is on that trip and you murdered the best man I ever knew. We’ve been finding the bodies you left behind all fucking morning. I haven’t had a drink in days and I smoked my last cigarette two hours ago. All I want is an excuse to kill you five times over and piss on your remains. Do you understand me?”

Wilson’s eyes were open wide. He looked bloody and scared.

Cody said, “What, you expected to hear your Miranda rights?”

He moved the muzzle a few inches to the right and fired into the ground so close to Wilson’s head it creased his scalp and furrowed through his hair above the temple. The concussion was deafening in the quiet woods, and when Cody’s ears stopped ringing all he could hear were Wilson’s terrified curses.

“Jesus Christ, you shot me. You son of a bitch. You can’t do this to me. You’re a cop.”

Cody said, “Yada-yada-yada. Tell me something I don’t know.”

“Cody,” Mitchell called from the timber, “everything all right?”

Cody didn’t look up. “Everything’s fine,” he said.

He moved the muzzle back over where it belonged between Wilson’s eyes, said, “Now tell me, is my son okay?”

“He was fine when I saw him last,” Wilson said. Then: “You busted my nose.” He pronounced the last word node. “And I can’t hear out of my right ear.” Cadt.

“I’m just getting started,” Cody said softly. “Now what I’m going to do is ask you a series of questions. Your job is to answer each and every one of them with absolute truth and clarity. I’ve interviewed hundreds of dirtbags like you in my life and I know when I hear a lie. If I hear one it’s the last thing you’re ever going to say. Do you hear that?”

Wilson nodded.

“Good. Tell me why you killed Hank Winters.”

“I didn’t kill him, I swear.”

“You’re an idiot,” Cody said, feeling his face get hot. “We’ve got bodies all over Yellowstone Park. I’ve got the gun you used and the knife. Now you’re going to tell me you’re innocent?”

“I said I didn’t kill Winters, whoever the hell he is,” Wilson hissed. “I’ve never heard of the guy. It wasn’t me who did that. It wasn’t me, I swear it.”

Cody paused. “Are you going to try and tell me you didn’t kill D’Amato, Russell, or Glode, too?”

“No, I ain’t going to tell you that.”

“But you know who killed Hank Winters?”

Wilson nodded so slightly Cody almost mistook it for a tremble.

“Do you know why?”

Another barely perceptible nod.

“So what in the hell is going on?” Cody said, pressing the muzzle and front sight against Wilson’s forehead hard enough to draw blood.

35

“Is he gone?” Danielle asked Gracie.

“I think so.”

They were in their tent, waiting for Jed McCarthy to leave camp. Gracie had unzipped the front flap wide enough to see. She could see the aluminum cooking station and James Knox pacing but her field of vision was blocked in back of her. The trail was beyond the camp over a rise. If Jed was indeed gone she hadn’t seen him ride away. But the sounds of the adults talking was muted and random, the sounds of nervous small talk. If Jed was still there she would have heard his voice, which seemed to cut through the air like a saw.

The afternoon sun lit the nylon walls and it was hot inside and Gracie could smell the dirt and perspiration on her body and Danielle’s. She couldn’t remember ever going two days without a shower, much less two days outside being coated by dust, wood smoke, horse, sweat, and a new smell: fear.

“So we’re agreed?” Gracie said, sitting back on her sleeping bag. “We’ll gather up Dakota and Rachel and get out of here.”

“Don’t forget Justin,” Danielle said.

“He’ll want to bring Walt,” Gracie said, a hint of a whine in her tone. “Walt will be the good politician and he’ll probably tell everyone what we’re doing and want them to come, too. Then it’ll be all of us and we’re back to where we started.”

“With this pack of losers,” Danielle said. “But as long as we go home, I don’t care. And I can’t just leave Justin.” She’d brought a file along as well as red polish and she was methodically grooming herself finger by finger. “By the way, I saw where Dad hid the keys to the rental car. He put them by the gas cap and closed that little door. So when we get back we can drive right on out of here.” Then, “Man, I want to take a shower and clean this trip off of me. Except for Justin.”

Gracie put her head in her hands.

“You don’t understand love,” Danielle said solemnly.

“You’ve known him for two days,” Gracie said.

“Like I said. You don’t understand love. I hope someday you will,” Danielle said, studying her nails. “But you’ll need to lose the attitude.”

Gracie flopped back on her sleeping bag and kept one hand over her face.

The silence went on for a while, Danielle working on her nails and Gracie sweltering and miserable. Finally, Gracie said, “What about Dad?”

“I thought you said you didn’t care about him, the way he treated you.”

“I said that,” Gracie said, “but I was mad at him. We can’t just leave him here.”

“Why not?” She sounded half miffed and half bored. Danielle seemed more than amenable to let Gracie make all the profound decisions, and didn’t seem to like the idea of her waffling because that required her to once again become involved in the discussion.

Gracie said, “Because he paid for this trip and everything’s gone wrong. I feel sorry for him, you know? I’m not sure Rachel even likes him anymore, and that was the whole point. I mean, besides us bonding with him in the wilderness and all of that. He’s going with us.”

“I like Rachel,” Danielle said. “She’s cool. She treats us like adults. Like we matter.”

“Yeah.

“Unlike Dad, I mean.”

“Yeah.”

“I think he doesn’t know whether we’re little girls or young adults, so he goes with what’s most comfortable to him-meaning we’re his little girls. He can’t think of us as real people. That’s why he doesn’t believe me when I say someone is spying on us or believe you when you say you heard something happen in the dark outside the tents.”

Gracie spread her fingers apart on her face so she could look at her sister with wonder. Rarely did Danielle say something that made her think.

“What?” Danielle asked, defensive.

“Nothing.”

“Anyway, wouldn’t it be weird if Rachel turned out to be our friend even after she dumps Dad?”

“I hadn’t thought of that.”

Danielle said, “That’s the kind of thing I think about all the time. You know how so many of our friends say they wish their parents could get back together? Well, I never think that. I think Mom is better off without him. I think he’s kind of embarrassing, to be honest. He’d rather make that idiot Jed like him than show respect for his own daughters.”

Gracie sat up and shook her head at her sister. “You’re talking about our dad.”

Danielle shrugged. “Really, basically, he’s just another dude. He’s got to show me something to get me to think otherwise, and I haven’t seen it.”

“Danielle!”

“Hey,” she said, sliding her nail file back into its plastic holder like a sword into a sheath, “that’s what I feel. So why shouldn’t I say it?”

“Maybe you should think rather than just feel,” Gracie said. “It’s possible, you know.”

Danielle shrugged. “Yeah, if you’re a pathetic loser, I guess.”

Gracie flopped back down on her back. “This is the worst trip I’ve ever been on.”

Danielle said, “Welcome to Hell-o-stone Park, sister. Maybe we’ll see some wolves and bears and birdies and other stupid animals on the way out.”

Gracie moaned.

Danielle leaned over on her and put her lips to Gracie’s ear. “Now let’s go find Dakota and Rachel and my boy and Dad and get the friggin’ hell out of here.”

They avoided the camp and skirted along the edge of the trees toward where the horses were picketed.

“We’ll ask Dakota to get our horses ready,” Gracie said. “I can help her. Then we’ll find Rachel.”

Danielle nodded.

Shadows lengthened across the open ground as the sun sank beneath the tops of the trees. The temperature dropped a quick ten degrees in the shade.

“Leaving in the dark might be a problem for us,” Gracie said.

“I don’t care when we leave as long as we leave,” Danielle said.

“There’s Rachel,” Gracie said, seeing her coming up from where the horses were. Their dad wasn’t with her. And something was off about the way she walked; arms crossed around her like she was hugging herself, head down. She appeared deep in thought.

“Rachel,” Gracie called.

Rachel’s head snapped up. Her face was drawn and white.

“What’s wrong?”

Rachel took a deep breath, as if trying to gain control of herself. She said, “Oh, girls, it’s horrible. I just found Dakota down there. Somebody slit her throat and killed her. It just happened. Her body…”

Gracie gasped and Danielle froze beside her.

“This isn’t a joke, is it?” Danielle asked.

Rachel shook her head and gestured behind her. Her eyes were rimmed with red and she looked like she could collapse. “There’s so much blood,” she said, and opened her arms so they could see it on the front of her shirt. Rachel said, “I turned her over to see if she was still alive, but…” She couldn’t finish again. She was trembling.

Gracie gasped. “Could it possibly have been an accident?” she asked, her voice trembling.

“No.”

“Did you see anyone?”

Rachel turned away, deflecting the question.

“Rachel,” Gracie said, “who did you see down there?”

“She saw Jed,” Danielle said. “Jed did it.”

Rachel nodded her head and tears streamed down her cheeks, making them glisten in a shaft of sunlight.

“Oh my God,” Gracie said, reaching out for Danielle so her legs wouldn’t collapse. “She saw Jed kill Dakota.”

Rachel nodded, apparently unable to speak.

“We’ve got to get out of here,” Danielle said. “Now.”

Gracie watched as Rachel’s horror transformed into anger. She reached out and grasped both sisters and leaned into them.

“Your dad and I were down by the horses. We heard them arguing and we hid. That’s when Jed did it. And he just left her there and took his horse. He just left her there in the grass.”

Danielle covered her mouth with her hand.

“Your dad asked me to get you out of here. He said he’d stay in the camp with the others and try to keep Jed under control until we’re gone. Get your horses,” she said. “I’m going to lead us out of here.”

Gracie felt a flood of relief. Then: “What about everyone else?”

Rachel’s eyes flashed. “I don’t care about them and I don’t know if we can trust anyone but each other anymore. It’s time to take care of ourselves now. The rest can be on their own.”

Gracie swallowed, “Even Dad?”

“I know,” Rachel said, gripping her arm harder, “but it’s what he asked me. He’s going to quietly tell the others what we saw and get them to help him jump Jed and tie him up until we can get help. He doesn’t want you two in the camp in case things go bad.”

“Justin’s coming with us,” Danielle said, pulling away from Rachel and folding her arms over her breasts. “I won’t leave him behind.”

Rachel grimaced, but she seemed to realize she’d come up against an immovable object.

“Get him,” she said. “We leave in five minutes.”

Gracie and Danielle walked up the hill into the camp. They tried to not betray their anxiety or their plan. Gracie noted that Danielle was better at deception than she was, and she could only imagine how she looked so she covered her head with her hood and kept her eyes down. Jed wasn’t there, and neither was her dad.

What was going on?

She followed her sister to where Justin was sitting on a rock. Danielle approached him, held out her hand, and Justin took it with a quizzical but amused look on his face. She led him away.

Walt didn’t say a word.

As they led Justin back toward the horses, Gracie chanced a look over her shoulder. Donna Glode, Knox, and Walt stared at the fire, absorbed in their own thoughts.

36

From the edge of the clearing where he was resting the horses, Mitchell called, “Hey, Hoyt. When you get a minute you may want to come look what this guy has in his saddlebags.”

Cody didn’t ease up on the pressure he was applying with the muzzle of the rifle. He said, “In a minute, Bull.”

But he noticed something pass across Wilson’s bloody face.

“Christ,” Wilson said. “You’re Cody Hoyt?”

“That’s right.”

“Shit, I should have figured it out. I knew your uncle Jeter. We used to drink together at the Commercial Bar in Townsend.”

Cody let up a bit simply because he was trying to process what Wilson said.

“You’re a damned Hoyt,” the man said. “A damned Hoyt.” As if it meant something.

“Then who the hell are you?” Cody asked. “I’ve never heard of anyone named K. W. Wilson.”

Wilson clammed up, and Cody stepped back and kicked him hard in the ribs. When the man grunted and curled away, Cody dropped on him with a knee in his back and snatched his wallet out of his jeans pocket.

The Montana auto license was in the front sleeve. “Jim Gannon,” Cody said. “Shit, I know that name.”

Gannon, like his uncle Jeter, was an outfitter who used to work out of Lincoln. Cody had never met him, but he’d heard stories. Gannon was a hard-drinking, hard-charging fourth-generation Montanan. He had a reputation as a poacher and a wild man, and Cody remembered hearing he’d been brought up on charges and had his outfitting license revoked and his hunting lodge shut down.

Cody said to Mitchell, “Bull, you know who we’ve got here?”

“Jim Gannon,” Mitchell said, ambling over. “That’s what I was going to show you. He’s got a bunch of personal crap in his saddlebag with his name all over: ‘Property of Jim Gannon.’ I told you we were dealing with an outfitter. Hell, I thought he looked familiar. I guess I must have seen his picture in the paper once when they brought him up on charges.”

Cody swung his rifle back over. “Why’d you register for this trip as someone named Wilson?”

Wilson/Gannon rasped, “Why d’you think?”

Cody said, “So Jed or anyone else in his office wouldn’t recognize the name. It would have seemed kind of suspicious for a bent guide like yourself to pay all that money to go on a trip with dudes.”

Gannon nodded, still trying to get his breath back from the kick.

“I think you should just shoot him now,” Mitchell said, leaning against a tree. “He gives outfitters a bad name. I never knew him because he wasn’t in the Montana Outfitters and Guides Association. Hell, he doesn’t even know how to handle horses worth a damn.”

“So I ask again,” Cody said, “what the hell is going on?”

Gannon gathered himself and sat up with a moan. “Every inch of me hurts,” he said.

“More is about to,” Cody said, and shot him in the knee.

“Jesus!” Mitchell said, jumping back. “Why’d you do that?” The spent casing landed between his boots.

Cody said to Mitchell, “I’ve seen this particular method of interrogation work pretty well before.” Thinking about the year before in Denver. It had certainly worked then, to a point.

Gannon howled and grabbed his mangled leg with both hands. Cody hoped he wouldn’t pass out from shock before he started talking. Nevertheless, he took careful aim at Gannon’s other knee.

“Please, no, no…,” Gannon begged.

“Hoyt, I don’t know about this,” Mitchell said, shaking his head.

“Tell me why you’re on this trip,” Cody said to Gannon.

“We’re trying to find that plane,” Gannon shouted, fighting through the pain. “That goddamned plane that went down.”

“What plane?” Cody asked, but as he said it he recalled something Larry had said. Something about a disabled private airplane flying south toward Yellowstone that was spotted by citizens in Bozeman but never reported missing by anyone. The incident had caused the assembling of the interagency Homeland Security search and rescue team and that was when Larry said he met Rick Doerring of the Park Service.

“That goddamned plane that went down last winter,” Gannon said through clenched teeth. Black blood seeped through his fingers, which were laced around his shattered kneecap.

“What’s in the plane?”

“Jesus. Money. Jesus. Drug money.”

“Why go with Jed? Why didn’t you just come up here on your own and go get it? Why involve all these people?”

Gannon was starting to shake. His teeth chattered. “It wasn’t my fucking idea. Jesus, I’m going to bleed out and die.”

“Let’s hope,” Cody said. “So whose idea was it? You said ‘we.’”

“My partner. All my partner’s idea. All of it.”

Cody took a deep breath, fighting back the urge to shoot again. Mitchell hovered, shaking his head.

Cody said, “So your idea was to what? Come up here with Jed’s clients and break off and find this damned plane? Use him so he could lead you here?”

Gannon nodded his head. “Yeah, that. We wanted to come on our own but with the snowpack and the flooding, this was the first time we could get to where we think the plane crashed. When we found out Jed was leading his clients where we wanted to go-and would be the first to get there anyway-we signed on. Believe me, there wasn’t supposed to be all this trouble.”

Cody gestured with the rifle, urging Gannon to keep talking.

“None of this other stuff-those three stupid guys back there-was supposed to happen. But that idiot Jed decided to take a different trail, and one of ’em-Glode-got mad about it. That and his wife going down with D’Amato. So he said he was going back on his own. We couldn’t risk him getting back to the vehicles and telling the Park Service where we were going. What if they sent rangers after us? They might locate the plane before we did.”

Cody thought the likelihood of the Park Service sending rangers to tell Jed McCarthy to get back on the established route was crazy and unlikely, but he didn’t want Gannon to stop talking, so he urged him on.

“So I went with Glode. I tried to talk him into going back with the others, but he was stubborn and had a bug up his ass and he wouldn’t turn around. And you know what happened. I had to stop him.”

Cody took a step toward Gannon, still aiming down the sights at his other knee. “Why take out D’Amato and Russell, then?”

Gannon closed his eyes. His chin shook. “They wouldn’t have found Glode or me and they might have gone all the way to the parking lot looking for us. There was a good chance they’d call the Park Service and report a couple of missing men. It was a worse situation than what happened with Glode, because at least that guy deserved it.”

“So you shot them both point-blank when they found you,” Cody said. “And left them to bleed out or wait for animals to find them. Thinking they’d be mauled beyond recognition if their bodies were ever found and maybe not even point to you.”

Gannon rocked back on his haunches holding his knee. He said, “This whole damned thing is a clusterfuck. Everything’s gone wrong.”

Cody said, “So why did Jed take the other trail?”

“I don’t know, I don’t know… it’s all his fault this happened.”

“He didn’t kill three people,” Cody said, “or put my son in danger.”

Gannon writhed in pain. “Worse,” he said. “Worse.” As if that somehow lessened his own guilt.

“So your partner is still with the others on the pack trip?” Cody said.

Gannon nodded, his eyes closed, his mouth contorted.

“Which one is he? Jed?”

Gannon either couldn’t speak or refused to say.

“I said-”

“Damn you!” Gannon bellowed as his eyes shot open. He glared at Cody with unbridled hate. “You’re a cop. I know you’re playing rough and you’ll think of some story to cover you later. I know you won’t kill me. But I damned sure know she will.”

Cody felt the hairs on his neck stand up. “What did you just say?”

37

Jed McCarthy was angry and anxious and almost missed the game trail he was seeking to go up the mountain. That Dakota was miffed at him was one thing. But to blatantly disregard his instruction to bring him another horse, to vanish like that leaving only his saddle on a stump, was another. And why did she take the lame horse with her? Where in the hell did she go when she should have been getting dinner ready for his clients?

So he’d gotten another damned horse from the herd and put his saddle on it and ridden out of there.

“Women,” he said, as if it were a curse word.

He wondered if she’d be there when he got back to camp. He wondered whether-hoped-Tristan Glode, Tony D’Amato, and Drey Russell had returned as well. He didn’t care about Wilson, never had.

If they were all back his world would be in order again, even if Dakota had split the blanket for good. He could cope for the rest of the trip without a petulant Dakota dragging him down.

He’d make sure that future didn’t have any women like Dakota in it, he thought with a crooked grin.

As he wound his way up the mountain directly west away from the trail he caught a glimpse through the trees of a J-shaped glacier on the side of a mountain face. He recognized it and nodded to himself, then reached back and undid his saddlebag to compare it against the Google map printouts in his file. The file was missing, and he bellowed, “Dakota! You bitch!”

He thanked God she hadn’t dug deeper and found the satellite phone. He’d never even told her it existed, or that he brought it along on every pack trip just in case he got into some kind of trouble. He was afraid she’d make a casual reference to it and a client would hear her and want to use it. Pretty soon, he’d have clients lined up wanting to call home, check on their kids, call the office, and so on. He was a purist about the wilderness and about the experience he wanted to impart on his trips, and that experience had very much to do with isolation and forcing his guests to not keep in contact with home.

But this was different. This was about him. He punched in the number he was told not to call under any circumstances until he was done with the trip and it rang three times before it was picked up.

“What?”

“This is Jed. I’ve got a problem.”

“I know who the hell it is. It’s not a good time.”

“I said I have a problem. I need your help.”

“You’ve got more problems than you know, Jed. I’ve been trying to reach you for two fucking days. Don’t you ever turn that thing on?”

“No,” Jed said. “I told you. I don’t even tell anyone I have it. If someone heard me talking on it-”

“I know, I know, you already told me, for Christ’s sake. But given the circumstances, I thought you’d at least check it.”

Jed said, “Someone took the map.”

Silence.

“I said-”

“I heard you! How in the hell did that happen? Who took it?”

“Don’t worry,” Jed said. “I know who it is and I’ll deal with her later. She works for me. Correction: worked for me. I don’t think she’s smart enough to figure out what we’re even looking for. But right now I’m practically there. I can see the glacier. I need you to send me that map again as an attachment. You can do that, can’t you?”

“If she’s got the map she might figure it out.”

Jed took a deep breath and looked up at the sky. “She won’t figure it out. I’ll make sure she doesn’t. I’ll make up a story about something-don’t worry about it. Right now, I need another copy of that map. Can you send it or not?”

A long sigh. “I told you it wasn’t a good time. I’m on the way somewhere now. I’ve got to deal with a problem of my own.”

“Are you on duty?”

“Yeah. But what I’m doing is off the books.”

“Can you send it to me when you get back to your office?”

“Yeah.” He was distracted. “Yeah, I can do that.”

“How long before I can expect it, then?”

“I don’t know. Forty-five minutes at the latest. Providing there’s no one around.”

Jed nodded. “Okay then. Good. So what’s the other problem you referred to?”

“There’s a cop after you.”

Jed felt his insides contract. “What?”

“There’s a cop after you. His name is Cody Hoyt, and he’s completely fucking nuts. His son is on your trip, I guess. Jed, he somehow thinks there’s a connection between some murders and someone on your trip. That’s why he’s after you.”

Jed shook his head. “I don’t understand. What murders?”

“The last one happened up here a week ago. He thinks whoever killed this guy-his name was Winters-is on your pack trip. He wants to find him.”

“So what are you telling me?”

“To watch out. I lost track of him two nights ago in Bozeman, but he was definitely headed your direction.”

“Are you saying he’s in the park?”

“I don’t know. I’m going to find out. That’s where I’m headed right now. I know a guy who probably knows where he is.”

“He’s in the park?” Jed said again.

“I told you, I don’t know.”

“And what do you mean he thinks there’s a killer on my trip? Who in the hell is that supposed to be?” Thinking: If anyone, it’s Wilson.

“I don’t have a name. I don’t even have a description. I’m not sure he knows.”

“The boy must be Justin because he’s the only boy on the trip.”

“Okay.”

“Why in the hell would a killer book a pack trip? This makes no sense.”

“I know, I know. I’m just telling you what I know.”

“Look,” Jed said, trying to keep his anger at bay, “You told me you’d take care of the back end. You told me all I’d need to worry about was finding that wreckage and you’d handle your end and make sure nobody put things together. You fucking told me you’d use all your… influence… to make sure I was the only one looking for that plane.”

“I know all that. You think I don’t?”

“I don’t know anything,” Jed said, shouting into the mouthpiece, “except you assured me you’d handle your end. What the hell is going on here? Can’t you control a single fucking cop?”

A long sigh. “He’s gone rogue. Nobody can control this guy. Believe me, I thought I’d put him out of the picture, but somehow he got away.”

Jed said, “So what do you want me to do? Do you want me to just turn around and forget everything? Do you want me to quit? Well, I can’t do that because I’m here. I see the glacier. This whole trip has fallen apart and I’ve got clients gone and angry and I’ll probably lose my business if any of ’em tells the Park Service.”

“Just calm down, Jed. I’ll handle my end.”

“You’ve fucked up your end, if you ask me.”

“Look, I’m here. I’m ten minutes away from his house. I’ve got to go inside and get some answers. I’ll call you back as soon as I know where Hoyt is. And I’ll send you that map and the GPS coordinates the minute I get back to the office. Just don’t fucking panic.”

Jed said, “You’d better make this right. The rest of my damned life depends on it.”

“I will. Don’t worry. Now keep your phone on.”

38

At the same time, two and a half miles away, Cody and Bull Mitchell hoisted Jim Gannon up over a high branch. They’d decided based on what Gannon had told them they had to move as quickly as they could to overtake the pack trip, and bringing along the wounded Gannon and four extra horses would slow them down. Using tape and bandages from Mitchell’s first-aid kit, they’d bound up Gannon’s knee the best they could and tied his hands and feet together. Mitchell had fashioned a seat harness out of rope they could use to lift him.

“Give me a couple of minutes,” Mitchell said, breathing hard from the labor of pulling on the rope with Cody. “I need to get these spare horses picketed so they’ll be okay.”

Cody nodded and unhooked the satellite phone and powered it up. He had a good clear signal and no messages. He started to key in the number for Larry’s secret cell phone, thought better of it, and called Larry’s ex-wife’s cell. She was a real estate agent and was never without it day or night.

“Cindy Olson.”

“Cindy, this is Cody Hoyt. I’m out of town and I need to reach Larry.”

“Oh, it’s you. The man who shot our coroner.”

It seemed like ages ago, Cody thought. “Yes, well, there’s a good story that goes along with that but I’ll need to tell you at a better time. Right now, it’s urgent I get ahold of Larry.”

“Ah,” she said, “you probably tried his office and his cell but he didn’t pick up.”

“Sort of.”

“Then you probably didn’t hear. I’m surprised you didn’t, since you two have such a deep bromance. Larry’s been suspended. You can reach him at home, I suspect. Suggest to him that he spend some of his downtime looking for work because he’s got a child support payment coming up.”

“Why was he suspended?”

“Guess, Cody.” And she hung up.

He called Larry’s house. He lived outside of Helena near Marysville on U.S. Highway 279.

“Larry,” Cody said.

There was a beat. Then, “It’s you, you son of a bitch. Where are you? Did you get my messages?”

“I got ’em.”

“Then why in the hell didn’t you call me back?”

Cody said, “I don’t have time to explain, but in a nutshell I got paranoid. I didn’t want you to know where I was because of that fire in Bozeman.”

“What are you saying?” Larry sounded hurt. “You thought I had something to do with that? Is that what you’re saying?”

“I don’t know what I was thinking,” Cody lied. “Blame it on the DTs. I’m fucking miserable, but we got the bad guy. Or at least one of them.”

“Who is it? And who the hell is ‘we’?”

Cody outlined hiring Mitchell, and the trail of bodies leading them to Gannon. “He’s here now,” Cody said. “We hung him up in a tree so the bears and wolves won’t eat him. The Park Service can cut him down and take him to a clinic. Not that I really care about that, but we’ll need his testimony to nail his partner, who is also on the pack trip.”

“His partner?” Larry sounded genuinely baffled. That made Cody feel better toward him.

“A woman.”

“Ah, Rachel Mina,” Larry said. Cody leaned into the phone, shocked Larry knew the name. “Although that’s not her married name, which is Rachel Chavez.”

“How do you know that?” Cody asked.

“You dumb shit, it was what I was trying to tell you when I called. I didn’t know about Gannon, but I did know about Rachel Mina Chavez. It’s called police work, and I think I connected all the dots. Of course, that’s before they suspended me for withholding what I knew about you.”

Cody felt his head begin to spin. “Tell me what you know,” he said.

Larry sighed. Cody could anticipate from that sound Larry was going to roll it out in the only way he could. He glanced up to see if Mitchell was still taking care of the horses and saw he was. And Jim Gannon swung slowly in a circle over his head, passed out. The late evening sun made a long shadow across the meadow of Gannon’s figure, and in silhouette it looked like the outfitter was hanging from the tree by the neck.

“We were looking at the wrong angle with those murders,” Larry said. “At least I was. All I could think of was alcoholics. So how do we get a connection between all these alkies in four different parts of the country? The thing I was trying to figure out was if it were possible they were all in the same place at the same time, like we talked about. Like an ex-alcoholic convention or something. And if not that, something to do with their jobs. But their professions didn’t lend that any hope. They might all travel from time to time, but not to the same places or for the same reasons. I couldn’t figure out how to put them in the same place at the same time, or to have something in common to link them besides drinking. To all be exposed somehow to whatever would later cause them to be murdered.”

Cody said, “You’ve got to get to it, Larry. We need to get going.”

“I know, I know. But do you remember when you told me Winters said no matter what, you can find a meeting?”

“Yeah.”

“So I got together with the brains at ViCAP and they were able to access his travel records. Winters flew exclusively on Delta out of Helena, so it wasn’t difficult. Man, that guy was all over the west but nothing jumped out at us. But one of the FBI boys thought to pull the records from Shulze as well, thinking if we could cross-reference just one flight or destination between them-put the two of them in the same place at the same time-we’d have something to go on.”

Cody started to pace back and forth through the grass. Adrenaline rushed through him.

Larry said, “October 27 of last year, both Winters and Shulze were on the same flight bound for L.A. They probably didn’t even know the other was on the plane. Shulze was going to some academic conference at UCLA and Winters was connecting through LAX to Sacramento. But here’s where it gets interesting: the flight didn’t make it to LAX for two days because it got diverted to San Diego.”

“Diverted?” Cody asked. “Why?”

“Wild fires,” Larry said. “October 27 last year was the worst of the fires out there. They closed LAX for two days because of the smoke, and all the inbound flights were diverted to other airports. Winters and Shulze found themselves in San Diego October 27 and 28 with nothing to do.

“So we kept digging. William Geraghty was diverted to San Diego on a United flight for the same two days, and Karen Anthony was there visiting her sister.”

Larry said, “So imagine the situation. Four alkies away from home. Three killing time at the airport hanging out, just waiting for an announcement so they could get back on their schedules, surrounded by airport lounges and bars and high tension all around. Karen Anthony is there with family, but keeps getting those old urges. So in that circumstance, where would they go?”

Cody said, “To an AA meeting.”

“Bingo,” Larry said. “So I find a detective in San Diego and run this theory by him and he buys it. So he starts doing the research and calls me back within an hour. An hour! And he tells me the specific AA meeting they all went to at a church. He even says he has photos of them going into and coming out of the meeting. He sends them to me and goddamn it if he isn’t exactly right. I’ve got entrance and exit photos of Hank Winters, William Garaghty, Gary Shulze, and Karen Anthony.”

“Hold it,” Cody said. “Since when do the police run surveillance on who goes to AA?”

“Never,” Larry said. “Unless they’ve got heavy surveillance going on somebody else who happened to go to the meeting. Like Luis Chavez, the now deceased head of the Chavez drug cartel based out of Tijuana. Seems he saw the light like all of these folks and would cross the border once a week to attend the AA meeting.”

“Chavez,” Cody repeated.

“Rachel Mina’s ex-husband.”

“I’m getting lost,” Cody said, pacing faster.

Larry said, “It’s no secret the cartels are at war. We know that. But what this San Diego cop tells me suddenly clears things up. Seems Chavez had a daughter named Gabriella who was a junior at the University of Colorado in Boulder. Gabriella was apparently the apple of his eye. She was from his first marriage, before he married Rachel Mina. The cartel fighting Chavez sent some guys north to kidnap Gabriella from the house Chavez had bought for her, and held her for ransom. They wanted Chavez to give them Tijuana and pay them millions in exchange for her. They knew he’d do anything-anything-to get her back. Apparently there was bad blood between Rachel and this girl, but that didn’t matter to Chavez. So Chavez literally cashed out. We’re talking tens of millions of dollars here, Cody. They agreed on a drop location in our country on neutral ground. The speculation was they took Gabriella to Jackson Hole, but nobody can confirm it. But that’s where Chavez’s plane was headed when it apparently had engine trouble and never made it. So the bad guys assumed they’d been stiffed. They didn’t believe Chavez’s claims that the plane went down with their money inside, and it was beside the point because whatever happened they wouldn’t get the loot. So those bastards took Gabriella with them to Laredo, Texas.”

Cody felt his scalp crawl. He said, “Now I remember what happened to her.”

“That’s right,” Larry said. “They murdered her and beheaded the body. After that, from what my San Diego guy said, it took just days for the bad guys to move in on Chavez’s territory and take over. There was a bloodbath involving his holdouts, and Rachel wanted to fight, but Chavez was a broken man and let it all happen. When he started showing up at the meetings in San Diego the cops thought he was planning his comeback or something, but they didn’t know at the time he’d lost his will to live or fight. But that’s why they were watching the meetings. And shortly after that meeting,” Larry said, “Chavez was found with a bullet in his brain down in Mexico.”

Cody’s head was spinning with all the information when suddenly it clicked. “Chavez told the story in the AA meeting,” Cody said. “He told it to Geraghty, Shulze, Anthony, and Hank. He was confessing his sins, preparing to kill himself or be killed. But because everything that’s said in those meetings is confidential and a lot of the time it’s pure bullshit, nobody told.”

Larry said, “But Rachel never knew that, and she wanted her money back and didn’t want anyone else getting bright ideas. The San Diego detective said the Chavez cartel owned enough Mexican cops who were privy to what the San Diego cops were doing that they probably had copies of the photos. So Rachel knew who was in the meeting and who she had to shut up. By the way, Rachel was suspected of being involved in her husband’s death, but the Mexican police never arrested her before she vanished. Now we know what she’s been doing.”

“Jesus,” Cody said, glancing up at Gannon, slowly turning in the rope harness. “So she traveled across the country to find everyone who’d been at that meeting. She wanted them all out of the picture before she came here. She must have contacted Gannon thinking: he’s an outfitter from Montana, he’d know his way around the park, where the plane with the money crashed.”

Larry said, “Gannon probably came pretty cheap.”

Cody said, “But how could an airplane crash in a national park and nobody know about it?”

“It’s simpler than you think,” Larry said. “You know about all the reports we get about aircraft taking off and landing on private strips. Those drug guys disable the tracking beacons and they don’t exactly file flight plans. The plane might not even have been registered. If it was flying north to south to Jackson Hole instead of the other way, it wouldn’t have attracted any undue attention. And the big thing is no one reported it missing. Our task force was assembled because a couple old folks thought they saw a plane that didn’t look healthy flying toward Yellowstone. If it crashed somewhere close to where you are there sure as hell wasn’t anyone around to see it come down.”

Cody nodded. “So the only people who knew what was in the plane or where it likely crashed were Chavez’s inside guys. Not even the bad guys knew where the plane was coming from. Rachel got her info from her husband’s inner circle, but she had no way of getting here on her own. Except for Jed McCarthy’s pack trip.”

Bull Mitchell mounted his horse and signaled to Cody. He was ready to go. Cody waved a just a second wave.

“This Rachel,” Cody said. “She must be a hell of a looker or a hell of a charmer.”

“Both,” Larry said. “A stone-cold manipulator with an ice cube for a heart.”

Cody said, “She managed to get acquainted with all the victims. I wonder if she played her Rachel Chavez card on them? Maybe she called Hank and said, ‘You met my husband in San Diego. He thought you were a wonderful man and he wanted me to give something to you for maintaining his confidence.’ Knowing Hank and the importance he placed in mentoring and trust, he’d buy it. Especially coming from a woman.”

“That’s what I figured, too,” Larry said. “She used their bond of confidentiality against them. Shulze and Garaghty, for example, never even told their wives who they were meeting. And she cleaned up her tracks by burning down the homes she killed them in and took things like AA coins-anything that would prevent us from connecting the dots.”

Cody paused. Gannon’s shadow now stretched all the way across the meadow into the bank of trees. He said, “You said you called the Feds. So they’re on their way?”

“Should be. I haven’t talked to them since this morning, when I got suspended. I didn’t tell them about you because I didn’t know where the hell you were. I kind of thought you might be in a drunk tank in Ennis, so they don’t know you’re there.”

“I’ll watch for helicopters,” Cody said. “I haven’t seen anyone but killers and dead bodies all day.”

“I’d be surprised if they show up tonight,” Larry said. “I can’t see them trying to find you guys or the pack trip in the dark.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah.”

“I’m going to kill her, Larry.”

“Don’t tell me that.”

“She’s dead,” Cody said. “She just doesn’t know it yet. For what she did to Hank and the others, for putting Justin in this situation, she’s going to die.”

“Ah, man…”

He glanced up. “We’ve got Gannon for testimony. We don’t need her to make the case.”

“Cuff her,” Larry said. “Bring her in. Hell, I want to meet this dame and look into her eyes. I want to see for myself what’s there.”

Cody walked toward his horse. Mitchell was clearly getting impatient. Cody said, “Larry, one more thing. I called that cell number you gave me earlier today. Somebody picked up but wouldn’t say anything. What was that about?”

A long pause. “Shit, Cody, I don’t know. When did you call?”

“Around ten.”

“That’s when I was in Tubman’s office getting my skin peeled off for not telling him you’d left Helena.”

“Where was the phone?”

“In my briefcase. Next to my desk. Oh shit,” Larry said.

“Somebody answered your phone,” Cody said. “Somebody listened to me. Somehow they know I’m here.”

“I can’t imagine who…,” Larry said. Then: “Hold on a second. Somebody’s banging on my door. I’ll be right back.”

Cody said, “Somebody’s been tracking me, Larry. Someone tried to burn me alive on the way here.”

He realized Larry had stepped away.

Cody heard the receiver thunk on Larry’s kitchen table. He heard a greeting, a shout, and a gunshot. Then someone picked up the phone. Cody heard breathing. Like before.

“Larry?” Cody asked.

The connection ended.

39

Gracie asked Rachel, “How did you and my dad meet?” She couldn’t get him, or what Rachel had told them, out of her mind.

They were riding down the trail Jed had taken, following his hoofprints. Rachel, Gracie, Danielle, and Justin. They’d left the camp under Rachel’s direction, and they’d moved quickly and quietly. Rachel made a quick trip to her tent to retrieve a backpack that was now lashed to the skirt of her saddle and hung low like there was something heavy in it.

The last moments of the evening sun reached through the trees and lit the snowcapped peaks of the eastern mountains, fusing them with a good-bye wink of neon orange and pink. Gracie had barely had enough time to retrieve her hoodie before they left and she was glad she had. It seemed cooler than it had the night before and she was grateful for the warmth from Strawberry between her thighs.

“I said-”

“I heard you,” Rachel replied. There was a cool businesslike edge to her voice, and Gracie recoiled.

“Probably the wrong time to ask,” Gracie said. “I’m sorry.”

Rachel rode ahead, her face set into the mask Gracie had seen earlier. Gracie thought, She’s distracted. She’s leading three teenagers through the back of beyond and she’s unsure she can do it. She’s distracted.

“It seems awful to just leave him like that,” Gracie said, as much to herself as to Rachel.

“It’s what he wanted. Would you rather go back?” Rachel said with the same edge in her voice as before. “You can go back there if you want to. I told you what happened.”

“No,” Gracie said softly.

“I just had a human being die in my arms,” Rachel said, not looking over her shoulder at Gracie or trying to soften her tone. “And I saw the man who did it.”

Gracie felt sick.

“We’ve got to find help,” Rachel said. “We’ve got to get out of here.”

From behind, Justin said, “Excuse me, Miss Mina?”

Rachel jerked around in the saddle and looked past Gracie to Justin. “Yes?”

“I’m wondering why we’re on this trail? If we’re headed back to the trailhead this is the wrong direction, I’m pretty sure.”

“It’s the trail we’re taking,” Rachel said.

“I don’t get it,” Justin said, undeterred. “Seems like we’re going the wrong way.”

Gracie looked ahead for the first time at the trail itself. It was unmarked except for a single set of horse tracks. She was confused.

“What’s going on?” Danielle asked from behind them.

“Nothing,” Rachel said sharply. “Just please keep quiet, all of you.”

Danielle rode up beside Gracie and leaned in to her. “I’ve been thinking,” she said.

Gracie refrained from expressing surprise.

“Remember when we got to the airport in Bozeman? Dad wasn’t there.”

“I remember.”

“Where do you suppose he was?”

Gracie shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“I don’t know either. But he’s the one who made such a big deal out of this trip. Knowing him, he should have been there three hours early pacing around and getting all worried about us.”

Gracie nodded. “That does sound more like him.”

“There’s been something going on since the beginning,” Danielle said. “He’s been up to something. And why wasn’t he in camp like he was supposed to be?”

“There has to be an explanation,” Gracie said, unsure of her own words.

“Tell me when you come up with one,” Danielle said, and slipped back into line.

Ten minutes later, Rachel said, “Here he goes,” and turned her horse from the trail onto a faint game route that went west into the trees. She looked back to make sure everyone was with her. Gracie refused to meet her eyes and kept her head down. She couldn’t stop thinking of what Rachel said she saw, and the fuel Danielle had added to the fire.

“This way,” Rachel said, spurring her horse onto the new trail.

“Now I’m sure we’re headed the wrong way,” Justin said.

Gracie watched Rachel carefully. How her chest swelled with a big intake of breath, how her mouth was set, how her eyes looked like slits because the skin on her face was pulled back tight. She turned her head and glared at Justin and seemed to be holding back her words.

“Stay in line,” Rachel said to Justin. “And stop talking. I’m trying to save us all.”

“It just doesn’t make sense to me,” Justin said. “I mean, we want to go back to the vehicles and we’re heading up into the trees on the side of a mountain. I just don’t get it.”

“No,” Rachel Mina said, “you don’t.”

“Danielle?” Justin said.

“Don’t ask me,” Danielle said.

Gracie wondered exactly who was leading them and who Rachel had become. She felt sick to her stomach and wished she’d talked to her father and at least said good-bye.

And as she watched Rachel ride ahead, she noticed the bulge on her right calf where the top of her boot was. Something pushed out against the fabric of her jeans. Gracie leaned over to her left to confirm Rachel’s left calf didn’t look like that. It was as if something was protruding out of Rachel’s boot top. Like a stick.

Or, Gracie thought with sudden realization, like the handle of a knife.

“I met your father in Minneapolis,” Rachel said to Gracie. The tone of her voice was warm, like it had been until recently. Like she was trying to reestablish their friendship. “I was there on business and I was staying at the Grand Hotel. My laptop was acting up and I was frustrated I couldn’t get it to work so I went down to the bar. He was at the hotel meeting a client, he said. I told him about my computer and he offered to take a look at it. I brought it down to the bar and he fiddled with it and had it working again in no time flat. Then we started talking.”

Gracie said nothing. She felt uncomfortable thinking of her dad in any situation where she wasn’t with him. She knew he was a man, and he likely had wants and needs. But she was sorry she’d asked Rachel the question in the first place, and wasn’t sure she wanted to hear the answer. And she didn’t want to set her off again.

Rachel said, “I told him I’d lost my husband recently as well as my stepdaughter. He said he was divorced but he had two daughters he was devoted to. That’s when I first heard about you and Danielle and how much you meant to him. I was touched.”

“That’s nice,” Gracie mumbled.

“Then he told me about you two and this trip. He was so excited and passionate that I just fell for him. We kept in touch and he suggested I come along so I could meet you two. So he could introduce us. I’d always wanted to see Yellowstone Park and he seemed to have it all organized and planned, so I came along. I had no idea…” Her sentence trailed off.

Gracie said, “Rachel, he wasn’t in the camp back there. Jed was gone and Dad wasn’t there.”

Rachel nodded in a sympathetic way. Then: “It must be hard to think of your father as a coward,” Rachel said. “I can’t even imagine what’s going through your head right now, so tell me. Maybe I can help.”

Gracie didn’t want to answer. Something about the way Rachel was asking, in such an intimate way, put her off. The swing from warm to cold back to warm made Gracie feel unbalanced, as if the ground beneath her feet was buckling. Finally, Gracie said, “I don’t know what I think.”

“That’s understandable,” Rachel said. “It’s the worst when someone you love does something beyond comprehension. It’s as if you never knew that person at all. As if your entire life together was based on a set of false assumptions. When it happens, it’s like everything you ever thought or knew turns out to be based on clouds and lies. You start to wonder, am I the fool here? Am I the gullible idiot who let a man ruin me because he was weak and tainted? It’s just so hard when it happens, and it eats at the very marrow of your soul until you either give in or decide to get out there and make your own way. You need to take back what you deserve, what belongs to you.”

Gracie said, “I don’t understand what you’re saying.”

Rachel shot a puzzled look at Gracie over her shoulder, then shook her head and shrugged. Gracie got the impression Rachel had said things she didn’t mean to say.

“Never mind me,” Rachel said. “Sometimes I just get going. You know how it is.”

No, Gracie thought. She looked again at the backpack Rachel had strapped to her saddle. Something heavy in it. And Gracie thought about the fact that she hadn’t seen Dakota’s body. No one had, except Rachel. Just like she hadn’t seen her father. She took it on Rachel’s word he was there with her when they saw Jed murder Dakota.

As she rode she found herself looking hard at Rachel in a different light. Justin was wrong. There might be good in everybody, but there could also be evil.

Gracie continued to stare while her stomach knotted. There was a bulge next to Rachel’s calf that could be the handle of a long knife. Rachel said Dakota had her throat cut.

Gracie couldn’t help herself. She lurched to the left and got sick, emptying her stomach on the grass.

Rachel looked back with suspicion masquerading as concern, and said, “Are you okay, darling? Is this whole thing getting to you, poor girl?”

Dusk gave way to darkness.

40

Jed McCarthy dug his headlamp out of his jacket and strapped it on the crown of his cowboy hat. He wasn’t ready to turn it on yet because there was still enough light to see, but that wouldn’t last much longer.

Even after years of wilderness pack trips, he was still slightly awed by twilight in the mountains when for a short period of time a natural transition unfolded as the wind stopped and the hidden animals became still and quiet and the nocturnal predators began to stir awake. It was immensely quiet and he could hear each footfall of his horse and his own nervous breathing.

Ahead of him, when the trees parted, he could see the massive J shape of the glacier in the bald side of the mountain. The glacier glowed light blue in the afterlight and it looked clean and pure and it seemed to beckon him.

His horse labored up the trail, climbing with a rocking motion. Jed sat forward in the saddle, urging him on. They continued to rise, switching back on sharp corners, but always going up. The pitch of the mountainside was getting so sharp he could reach out and touch the wall to his right at times. As it got darker he prayed the trail was passable and had not been blocked over the winter by rockslides or deadfall.

Finally, the sky opened up and although it wasn’t pitch-dark yet he could see the sudsy wash of stars in the cloudless sky. The full moon was rising and would soon take over the sky and keep the mountain illuminated.

His senses were on full alert. He was looking for anomalies. He noted a smudge of pale color in the shadowed branches of a pine tree and it caught his attention because it was out of place. He rode over and leaned and reached deep into the needles to retrieve it. It had some heft but was pliable and he pulled it out. A perfect little bird’s nest. Empty. The materials used to build it seemed unnatural, a blending of paper and fabric. He shook it and noted how spongy it was.

Birds and mice made nests of whatever material was available. It seemed to Jed much too far from anywhere for the birds to use man-made fabric, but there it was. What had they found?

He dropped the nest to the ground and rode on.

He was almost unaware of it at first, the dusting of snow on the ground in his peripheral vision. It was scattered and mixed in with the mat of pine needles.

Then he thought, Snow? In July?

He looked up. It wasn’t snowing, and it certainly wasn’t cold enough. Could it have snowed earlier in the day?

“This makes no sense,” he mumbled to himself while he pushed his horse farther, up the trail and finally to the top and he emerged on a long flat bench of rock.

He reined to a stop to take it all in. The glacier loomed above him like a dimly lit billboard. The bench was solid rock but puckered in places where shallow pools of water gathered from recent rains. Straight ahead of him, toward the face of the mountain, full-grown pine trees that had found purchase in cracks of the rock were knocked down. He could see where they’d been snapped off because the jagged trunks stood like a line of fence poles.

Snow was everywhere on the ground but it wasn’t cold, and he dismounted. His boots thumped on the solid rock, and he led his horse to the side where the snow was thickest, where it was caught in short grass.

He clicked on his headlamp and squatted down. The headlamp pointed wherever he looked, and he reached out to touch the snow.

Scraps of paper. Thousands of them. None bigger than a square inch. It was the same material that had been used to construct the bird’s nest. He grasped the largest scrap he could find and lifted it into the pool of light. A pair of hooded and wise eyes stared back from the scrap. He recognized the eyes, and said, “Ben Franklin.”

He stood, still holding the scrap between his thumb and forefinger. With his other hand, he reached up and twisted the lens of his headlamp to make the beam sharper.

At the far end of the bench, beyond the sheared-off trees, looking like the last glimpse of a whale sounding off the coast, the V-shaped tail of the airplane stuck straight up out of a crevice where it had fallen after crashing the winter before.

41

“What is that out there in that field?” Mitchell grumbled. “An elk? It’s almost gettin’ too dark to see.”

Cody looked up and squinted. Ahead of them, to the left of the trail in a moon-splashed clearing, was a horizontal dark form elevated above the grass. The form had been still as they approached but now it moved a few feet to the right. The figure was hard to make out because it was dark against a green-black wall of pine trees.

“Damn if it isn’t another stray horse,” Mitchell said. The string of docile horses was behind him. “But it looks like there’s something on it.”

Cody held his satellite phone up to his ear and was talking with Edna at dispatch in Helena. He was glad she was on duty and he’d ignored her pleas to tell her where he was and what had happened since she’d seen him last. When she took a breath, he said, “Edna, send a car up to Larry’s house in Marysville. I was talking to him ten minutes ago and I got cut off. I think something happened to him.”

She repeated, “Something happened to him? What?”

“I don’t know. But I’ve called back four times since and he won’t pick up. Edna, send whoever you can as fast as you can and warn them there may be someone else in Larry’s house. Tell them to nail the guy and hold him. Go!”

“Cody-”

“Go!” Cody barked, and punched off.

Mitchell and Cody rode up to the stray horse. Mitchell said, “Be calm, Hoyt. Don’t rush it or charge it or you’ll make it panic and run away. Don’t bark out Go! anymore.”

Cody hung slightly back and let Mitchell walk his gelding to the horse.

There was something on its back. Cody’s first thought was it was a roll of carpet or a set of slim panniers the way it hung over on both sides of the horse. He could see the horse didn’t have a halter or bridle.

“Easy now,” Mitchell cooed to the horse.

It was a bay and it took a few unsteady steps forward as Mitchell approached. Cody said, “He’s lame.”

“Yup,” Mitchell said, slipping off his mount and walking patiently toward the bay. With a movement as quick as it was gentle, he slipped a rope over the bay’s neck to keep it in place. The horse seemed docile but Cody could see white on the edges of its eyes. It wouldn’t take much to set it off.

“Oh, no,” Mitchell said with what sounded like genuine sadness. “We’ve got a woman this time.”

With that, he turned the bay and walked it a few steps into the moonlight.

Her body was draped over the back of the horse facedown. Long brown hair hung limply, obscuring her face and ears. Her hands had been tied under the belly of the bay to her boots to keep the body secure.

Cody gritted his teeth, and said, “Shit.”

“Look at this,” Mitchell said, pointing to a thin gash on the bay’s haunch that glistened with fresh blood. “They tied the body on and gave the horse a prod to get it running away.”

Mitchell looked up. “Do you know who she is?”

“I think so.”

“Want to make sure?”

Cody tried to swallow, but couldn’t. He nodded.

Mitchell gently grasped her hair with one hand and cupped her chin in the other and lifted her face up into the light.

Cody could see the gaping wound across her throat and he tasted bile in his mouth.

“Her name was Dakota Hill,” Cody said, his voice dry. “And we’re going to go find who killed her before there’s no one left.”

They approached the camp cautiously, even though Cody’s inclination was to storm it like Vikings. He could see a fire going, but only four people around it. Justin wasn’t one of them. Rachel Mina and Jed were gone as well.

There were four adults huddling around the fire. The firelight on their faces made them look gaunt and shell-shocked.

Mitchell had agreed to stay back in the trees to cover him with his hunting rifle as Cody walked his horse up. He kept looking for others in the camp. After all, there were nine tents pitched neatly in a meadow to the north of the camp. No one seemed to be in them.

Cody had his rifle out and across the pommel as he rode up. He was locked and loaded. He’d checked his.40 to make sure there was one in the chamber with a full twelve-rounds in the magazine.

Before they even knew he was there, before anyone looked up to see a strange rider approaching from the dark, Cody could feel a palpable sense of doom from the people sitting around the fire. Like they’d given in, defeated.

He recognized Walt immediately. His Richness sat there with his hands hung between his knees, his head down. The skeletal woman must be Donna Glode. The younger, slim man who looked out of place had to be James Knox. And the nervous man, the one who sat by the others but didn’t seem to be with them, must be Ted Sullivan.

Cody said, “Everybody stay where they are, I’m a cop.”

Walt said, “Cody? Is that you?”

“Yeah, Walt. Where the hell is my son?”

Walt gathered himself to his feet and swallowed. “He’s gone, Cody. I don’t know where.”

“Jesus,” Cody hissed, “what do you mean you don’t know?”

Donna Glode looked up from the fire. “Four more horses are missing. We think Justin is with the two Sullivan girls and Rachel Mina. They sneaked out of here without a word to anyone.”

Cody turned to Ted Sullivan: “Where are your girls?”

“I don’t know,” Sullivan said, standing with closed fists, “but I want to find them. I’m coming with you.”

Cody snorted. “Can you ride?”

“Not really.”

“Cody,” Mitchell said as he approached from the shadows, “I hate to break it to you like this, but you can’t ride worth a damn either.”

Cody said to Mitchell, “You’ll stay here with these three?”

Mitchell nodded.

Cody said to Walt, “Do you want to come, too?”

Walt sighed and looked away. “I’ll stay,” he said softly.

Cody shook his head, disgusted. To Ted Sullivan, Cody said, “Come on, then.”

42

Gracie noticed how Rachel Mina’s shoulders tensed as she spurred her horse from the trail up into the open. Then Strawberry nickered and a horse up ahead nickered back. Rachel didn’t turn around in her saddle but Gracie saw the woman’s hand move back and untie the string bow on the top of the pack she’d retrieved from her tent.

Gracie was beside herself. She had nothing but speculation to go on but with every foot they rode higher up the trail she became more convinced that everything they’d believed an hour before back at Camp Two was a fantasy. She hurt deeply and wanted to cry out for her dad and for herself.

But there was little she could do. Rachel rode ahead on the trail and both Danielle and Justin were behind Gracie. The steep wall of the mountain hemmed her in on her right and the ground dropped off to the left. She couldn’t turn and run, or even turn to talk to her sister to convey her fears. It was getting dark and cold. She had no weapon.

Rachel’s horse stepped up and over a solid lip of granite and Gracie could hear hoofbeats clatter on solid rock. In a moment Strawberry was on top as well. Danielle and Justin were right behind her.

Rachel had reined to a stop next to a riderless horse tied to the trunk of a tree. She turned in her saddle and whispered, “I’m going to protect you. Do you understand?”

Justin said, “Protect us? All I see is Jed’s horse.”

Rachel ignored him. “Everybody get off. We’re going to walk the rest of the way. I need you all to keep completely silent, and I mean that.”

Gracie looked to the others. Danielle looked miffed. She hated to be told what to do, especially if it involved silence. Justin was confused, and he scowled at the older woman.

Reading the same reaction Gracie had seen, Rachel reached back into the open pack and came out with a large handgun. She waved it toward them.

“Get off,” she said. “Now.”

“Where’d you get that?” Justin asked, swinging off his horse. “I thought nobody was supposed to-”

“Justin,” Danielle said sharply, cutting him off. She slid off her horse as well.

Gracie felt fear grip her insides and seem to clamp her legs to Strawberry. She wasn’t sure she could move.

“You too,” Rachel said to her. “Especially you.”

Gracie found the will somewhere and stiffly climbed down.

“Listen,” Rachel said to them, dismounting herself. “I don’t want you to be alarmed. I brought this for self-protection and I’m glad I did.”

She moved closer to them as she talked so she wouldn’t have to raise her voice. Gracie noticed Rachel kept the revolver down by her side, but not exactly pointed away from them. And she also noticed that when Rachel climbed down from her horse her pant leg had ridden up and the knobby end of the knife handle in her boot was now out in the open. Gracie shot a glance at her sister and Justin to see if they’d picked up on the same thing. They hadn’t.

“Look,” Rachel said, leaning closer. “That’s Jed’s horse but obviously he isn’t here. I don’t know where he is but we can’t be too cautious. We need to walk along here until we can find him. I hope nothing’s happened to him or anyone else is up here. But,” she said, gesturing toward the gun, “I want to be ready if there are any surprises.”

Justin and Danielle nodded. They probably didn’t fully grasp what Rachel was saying, Gracie thought, because Rachel made no sense. But she’d said it urgently and with gravity and it had worked on them.

Gracie said, “This isn’t about getting out of here, is it?”

Rachel looked over at her with icy contempt. She said, “We can talk later, Gracie. Right now I need you to stay with me here and keep quiet. Do you understand?”

“She does,” Danielle said, and elbowed Gracie in the back.

“Good,” Rachel said, giving Gracie another glance for good measure. “Follow me.”

Gracie couldn’t really feel her legs, although they seemed to move okay. She led Strawberry through the darkness behind Rachel, followed by the others. Protect them from whom? she thought.

She scarcely registered the snowlike substance gathered wherever there were tufts of grass.

But when she looked up over Rachel’s shoulder she saw a shaft of yellow light flash across the tops of the trees to the right, then to the left. The effect reminded her of Hollywood floodlights coursing through the sky from the ground. Then she heard a muffled thump and clank up ahead.

She was about to speak when Rachel snapped on her headlamp and illuminated the white metal tail of the airplane.

An airplane?

“What the hell is that?” Justin said.

“Shhhh,” Rachel cautioned him, holding a finger to his lips. Then, whispering, “All of you come up beside me. Bring your horses. Stand by me on both sides.”

Gracie hesitated. What were they doing?

“Come on,” Rachel said, heat in her voice. She was addressing Gracie directly.

Reluctantly, Gracie walked up and stopped on Rachel’s right. Danielle and Justin stood abreast on Rachel’s left. All of their horses milled and sighed behind them. The thumping and banging continued from the opening of the crevice, out of view.

Rachel raised her pistol toward the tail of the plane, and called, “Jed, you can come out now.”

The sounds stopped.

“Jed,” Rachel said, “we’re here. We know what you’ve found. You need to come out now.”

Gracie held her breath. The night was still except for the gentle shuffling of the horses behind them, nosing along the rock surface for blades of grass.

Suddenly, Jed McCarthy’s hat appeared above the rim of the crevice, followed by his face. Rachel’s headlamp light lit his features. His brow was furrowed in confusion and his mouth, as always, was hidden by his heavy mustache. He had a headlamp on as well, and the beam bobbed from Justin across to Gracie. That’s what she’d seen, Gracie thought, the beam of Jed’s headlamp escaping from within the crevice as he moved around down there.

“You found it,” Rachel said, “but it’s still my money. Now Jed, we need to see your hands. Pull your hands out and put them out in front of you on the rock.”

Then Gracie realized what Rachel had done. She’d gathered them around her in case Jed came out shooting. Not only would Jed think he was outnumbered, but a bad shot would kill a kid. They were standing, unaware hostages, she thought. And she knew at that moment every suspicion she’d had toward Rachel was true.

Jed said, “Yours?” But he pulled his hands out and put them on the rock. He had nothing in them, but the backs of his knuckles were smudged with dirt or soot.

Rachel said, “Mine. I guess I should be surprised someone else was after it, but I’m not.”

Jed raised one of his hands to shadow his eyes from the glare of Rachel’s headlamp. He said, “I see you got Justin and Danielle with you. Gracie, too. What, are they part of your gang?” When he said the word he grinned. He shook his head and said, “That goddamned Dakota. She just can’t keep her mouth shut, can she?”

Gracie thought there must be something wrong with him. Rachel held a gun on him and he was making jokes? Then she realized Jed assumed Dakota had not only told them about the printouts she’d found, but that he thought she was still alive.

Which meant…

“Look,” Jed said, chinning behind him toward the hidden fuselage of the plane, “I’ve been down there and it ain’t pretty. The pilot and copilot are long dead. They’re suspended from their seatbelts and the scavengers have been working on them for months. Worse,” he said, looking directly at either the muzzle of the gun or Rachel’s eyes or both, “the birds and mice have shredded whatever money is left. I haven’t been able to find a single bill that isn’t chewed up. That isn’t to say maybe if I keep digging I might find a bundle of cash somewhere the rodents haven’t chewed through, but I’ve been at this twenty minutes and I’m discouraged as hell.”

Gracie glanced over at Rachel. Her face was frozen into a porcelain mask of rage. Her lips looked almost blue. Her voice was tight and threatening when she said, “I don’t believe you.”

43

Cody spurred his horse wildly up the mountainside on the well-trod trail in the dark. He felt out of control because he was; he’d lost his balance once and slipped down the side of Gipper and nearly tumbled to the ground under his hooves but managed to pull himself upright. A few minutes after, he’d been swept out of the saddle backwards by riding under a low-hanging branch he couldn’t see in the dark. Cody’s shoulders and back ached where he’d hit the ground and the branch left a gash across his nose that oozed blood. He felt his ear burning where he’d been injured and realized he’d probably left the scab from it back on the branch. Ted Sullivan had done no better, and he’d fallen straight off the back of his horse and said he was pretty sure his tailbone was broken.

Cody relied on his horse to find the rest of the herd up ahead. That, and there was nowhere to go but up.

It was full dark in the trees now except for the perfectly blue-white orb of the full moon that winked down through openings. Cody was astonished how bright it was in the clearings now that the moon was up, and how the stars lit the ground as well, like an upside-down city illuminating overhead clouds. Without electric lights around for dozens of miles, the forest was capable of lighting itself, he thought. Who knew?

He was starting to question himself if they were on the right path when he saw a gold splash of light up ahead on the side of a tree. The top of the J-shaped glacier came into view and Cody heard a sharp voice, then another.

Cody pulled to a stop on Gipper and Sullivan’s horse slammed into him and both horses crow-hopped away from each other. He held on to the saddle horn and kept his head down but heard Sullivan fall heavily behind him with a grunt. Gipper calmed down, and he looked back, making sure Sullivan’s horse was in its proper place and not crowding him again. “Horses, Jesus,” Cody said under his breath. “They’re worse than kids.”

When he dismounted after clearing his rifle from the sheath, he heard rather than saw the thundering of Sullivan’s horse running away back down the mountain. Sullivan lay in a heap, writhing. Cody tied off Gipper to a tree trunk and crab-walked up the last twenty feet of the trail before it leveled. As he neared the top the voices got louder.

Painfully, he straightened his legs and rose up until he could see over the lip of the flat rocky bench. Horses blocked his view, but between their legs he could see four people standing side by side with their backs to him. Beyond them was the tail of an airplane and Jed McCarthy’s hands waving around in a beam of light as he talked. He appeared to be mostly underground, with only his head and shoulders visible. The dented white metal of the tail stood out in bizarre juxtaposition to the rock and trees that overwhelmed the area, but Cody instantly could see why it hadn’t been spotted from the air.

Justin was there. He recognized him because his son towered over the others. Justin held hands with a girl with long dark hair. He could tell by their rigid grip that the situation they were in was tense. A woman he couldn’t yet identify but guessed was Rachel Mina was next to them pointing a handgun toward the aircraft. Next to Mina/Chavez on her right was a slim younger girl shifting her weight nervously from foot to foot.

Cody spun and ducked back down and jogged down the trail to where Sullivan was. The man had managed to sit up and rest his back against a trunk. His face was contorted with pain.

Cody leaned in to him and whispered, “They’re up above. All of them. I’m not sure what’s going on yet, but I need you to stay here and not make a sound.”

“Are my daughters there?”

“I’m pretty sure. There are two girls, but I can’t see their faces. But it looks right. My son’s there, too.”

“Don’t let anyone hurt them.”

Cody reached out and squeezed Sullivan’s shoulder. He noticed how the man was positioned by, in effect, holding his buttocks in the air by digging in his bootheels and flexing his legs to avoid contact between his tailbone and the ground.

“Must hurt,” Cody said.

Sullivan nodded frantically.

“Don’t yell,” Cody said, and left him there. “Let me do my work here.”

Jed tried to stifle the grin that pulled on the sides of his mouth. Rachel Mina didn’t respond. In fact, the glint in her eyes and the set of her face said trouble.

He ignored the teenagers even though he wasn’t sure why they were there. They didn’t seem to know what was going on, the way their eyes shot back and forth from Rachel to him as if watching a tennis volley. Still, he felt responsible for them. They were his clients.

“Rachel,” Jed said, “there’s been a big misunderstanding, obviously. We can work this out. A couple of nights ago Dakota handed me some printouts she said she found in Wilson’s tent, but she must have been in the wrong damned tent. She must have been in your tent.

“I got curious as hell and wanted to see what he was looking for, so I rode up here tonight. How could I know there was a plane crash, or what was in the plane? Come on.”

Gracie thought, He’s lying.

Dakota had said Jed had some kind of scheme going. This was it.

Jed had fed them a story to convince them all to take an alternate route that would get him closer to the location.

He’d left Camp Two to try and find his missing clients, he’d said. So why was he up here on the side of a mountain, at least a mile off the trail?

She stole a look at Rachel Mina. She didn’t buy it, either.

So why did he keep smiling?

Cody’s sight lines were blocked by the horses and he couldn’t get a bead on Mina. He could clearly see her forearm and hand gripping the pistol, but the heavy front shoulders of a horse blocked the rest of her. Shooting guns out of hands was reserved for old Western movies. He needed a bigger and better target.

Feeling his way, he shinnied along the lip to his right. As he did so he got brief vignettes of Justin, Mina, and the girls through the horses’ legs, like viewing a set piece through the blades of a slowly spinning fan. He could see Jed clearly now, lit up in Mina’s headlamp. Jed seemed surprisingly relaxed, smiling even. Cody had a thought: were Jed and Mina in it together? Was this a falling out among conspirators?

But when he got a quick glimpse at Rachel Mina’s face and posture, he concluded it didn’t matter. The woman was cold as ice, and determined.

Jed said, “You need to let me crawl on up out of here, Rachel. I’ve got one foot on a ledge of the crevice and the other on a piece of metal. Either one might give the way I’m balancing myself. If you want, you can come over here and shine your light down this hole. You’ll see what I saw: dead guys, and a whole shitload of shredded cash. Below that, it drops down farther than hell. I couldn’t even see the bottom of this crevice, even before it got full dark.”

Mina didn’t budge. He couldn’t tell what she was thinking. He was getting tired of looking straight into the wide O of the muzzle of her revolver.

Finally, he said, “Rachel, there’s something you’ve got to know because this is getting old. When Dakota went to the wrong tent the other night she found that gun. Here, let me show you something. Don’t worry, I’m not armed.”

He slipped his right hand along the rock and cautiously dropped it down out of view, never taking his eyes off her. Wondering if she’d pull the trigger before he could show her.

Gracie braced for an explosion while Jed took one of his hands out of view. The man, she thought, was incredibly brave or foolish. Or he knew something no one else did.

Then she thought she heard something-a grunt or moan-from back beyond the horses and broken trees where the trail came up to the rock ledge. Had someone followed them?

She looked at Rachel out of the corner of her eye to see if she’d heard it as well. If she had, Gracie concluded, she showed no reaction. Gracie guessed Rachel was so focused on Jed and what he was doing she’d blocked everything else out.

Cody wanted to holler to Ted Sullivan to get the hell back. The man had crawled up the trail and was at the lip, peering across the rock toward the scene. He’d grunted in pain as he hefted himself to see.

Cody tried to get Sullivan’s attention by waving at him. But Sullivan couldn’t or wouldn’t look over.

Instead, Cody turned his attention to the plane. One of the horses had shifted slightly to the left and he could see the side of Mina’s face clearly. The background was good; the teenagers were to the sides and wouldn’t be hit by an exiting bullet or a possible miss.

Cody lowered himself to the rock and pulled the rifle butt to his shoulder and leaned in to the peep sight. Forty yards. An easy shot if his sight lines were clear.

The side of Rachel Mina’s face filled the tiny metal ring hole of the back peep sight. He noted her high cheekbones and attractive profile, her smooth skin, the glint of her eye.

His insides churned. He’d never in his life pointed a gun at a woman, much less shot one in the face. The realization and revulsion came out of nowhere.

Jed brought his hand back up as slowly as he dropped it. His eyebrows were arched in a way that suggested he was about to reveal a magic trick. He could sense Mina’s trepidation, he thought, and feel it from the others. Not that he was worried.

He laid his fist out on the rock knuckles down and opened his hand. Six bronze-colored.357 Magnum bullets winked in the light of their headlamps. Jed said, “Dakota took these, also.”

Gracie turned for Rachel’s reaction, hoping it was over.

Rachel shook her head at Jed. She said, “You must think I’m stupid. You have no idea what I’ve had to do to get here. You actually thought I’d bring only six bullets?”

Jed’s mouth opened and Rachel shot him between the eyes. The bark of the gun was sharp and Gracie saw the big tongue of flame. Jed’s head jerked back, his hat flew off, and he dropped out of view.

Despite the ringing in her ears, she could hear Jed’s body dropping down the crevice, smashing on the sides of the walls, until it landed with a thump several seconds later.

“Girls! Run!” Ted Sullivan bellowed.

Cody cursed and tried to keep track of the sudden activity through his sights.

Justin and Danielle let go of their horses and bolted for the far wall of trees. Mina spun on her heels with her smoking pistol in firing position. The horses, startled by the gunshot and the yelling, backpedaled away from them, then joined together and ran the opposite way from Justin and Danielle, crossing Cody’s view and blocking everything out for a moment as they passed by. The horses plunged over the lip of rock to Cody’s right a few feet away and crashed down through the timber.

And when they were gone Cody saw that Mina had grasped the younger girl around her throat and held her in front of her like a shield. The gun was pressed against the girl’s temple.

The girl, Gracie, was terrified. But she was taller than Cody thought, and blocked most of Mina’s body. When he peered down his sights he could see Mina’s flashing eyes, but barely over the top of Gracie’s head. He couldn’t take the shot and regretted he hadn’t fired moments before.

“It’s my dad,” Gracie said to Rachel, her voice altered by the pressure across her throat. “Don’t hurt him, please.”

“That’s up to him,” Rachel said. Then to her dad, “Ted, turn the fuck around and walk back down that trail or you’ll get your girls killed. Is that what you want?”

From the darkness, Gracie heard her dad say with a choke in his voice, “No, Rachel.”

Rachel said, “Are you here alone? Is anyone with you?”

Cody thought, That son of a bitch will say the wrong thing.

He prayed for Mina to shift her position. To move. Even if she’d turn to the right a little he might be able to see the back of her head and put one there.

Thinking, If only I’d fired earlier.…

Gracie said again, “Don’t hurt him, please, Rachel. He does his best.”

Rachel snorted bitterly. “And we both know that isn’t much, don’t we?” Then lowering her voice, she said to Gracie, “I don’t want to hurt him. I don’t want to ever see his face again, but I don’t want to hurt him. And I don’t want to hurt you. But I want what’s mine, and I want to get out of here with it. My life is in that plane. I’m not leaving without it.”

Gracie didn’t think it was wise to mention Jed said all the money was shredded.

“Ted,” Rachel called out, “you never answered me. Is anyone else with you?”

Suddenly, Gracie realized someone was. Because although her dad could never communicate well, he’d never lied. He wasn’t capable of telling a lie, even now. He was probably beside himself, she thought, trying to figure out what he could say. And the fact that he’d said nothing meant yes, someone else was out there.

“Ted?”

Gracie glanced down. Rachel stood with her legs braced behind her. She could see the top of the knife handle poking out of Rachel’s right boot.

The pressure of the muzzle eased slightly on her temple as Rachel yelled for Ted to answer her. Gracie took that moment to slump back and let her legs buckle, as if she’d suddenly passed out from the tension. She felt herself slide down Rachel’s body. Rachel braced herself and reset her grip on Gracie’s neck, but in the moment she did so Gracie felt the muzzle of the gun lift up and away.

She touched the handle of the knife with her fingertips then closed her hand around it and drew it out fast. Before Rachel realized what was happening, Gracie jerked the knife out and away from her, then back as hard as she could in a chopping motion, plunging it nearly to the hilt in Rachel’s right thigh.

The whimper that came from Rachel was wholly unexpected and a sound Gracie would never be able to forget. But the pressure on her neck eased and she was able to pull herself away and tumble to the rock.

Cody shot Rachel Mina in the heart twice with a furious double-tap. The woman was likely dead before she hit the ground.

Gracie saw the cloud of bright red mist balloon from the back of Rachel’s jacket, and felt the heavy gun drop on her leg. She heard the dull crack of Rachel’s head as it slammed down against the rock as she fell.

Cody was up and scrambling. He approached Mina’s body with his sights set on her head, hoping he wouldn’t need to pull the trigger again. He was struck by how small she looked now, like a broken doll. Rivulets of blood streamed from her body and filled cracks in the rock like a spring flash flood hitting the plains.

Gracie was sitting up covering her mouth with her hands.

He said, “You all right?”

She nodded.

“Damn, that was brave what you did,” he said. “Gutsy as hell, Grace.”

“It’s Gracie.”

“Gutsy as hell, Gracie.”

She nodded and he liked that she knew she’d been tough.

Gracie nodded toward Mina’s body. “She’s just so… dead.”

“That’s how it goes,” he said. Then to the others, “You can all come out now.” He almost said, Even you, Ted, you stupid moronic son of a bitch who just about got your daughter killed. But he didn’t.

Cody looked up to see two figures coming out of the woods. One of them had a flashlight.

“Justin?”

“It’s me.”

His son shined his flashlight beam up so his face was illuminated. Although the shadows should have looked monsterlike, Cody saw a huge smile and an expression he could only think of as awed.

And for the first time in at least ten years, Justin walked straight up to him and threw his arms around him. Justin said, “My God, Dad. I just knew you’d come. As soon as things went bad, I knew you’d be here.”

Cody said, “You did?”

“I had faith in you,” Justin said.

Stunned, Cody said, “Hell, I didn’t.”

“I did,” Justin said, squeezing harder. “I can’t believe you. I just can’t frigging believe you.”

Cody grunted but hugged him back for a moment.

Gracie ran to her dad, Danielle behind her. He was crying with joy, tears on his face. She helped him walk up over the lip of rock, and wrapped her arms around his waist.

“Careful,” he said, sobbing, “I think I broke my tailbone.”

“Jeez, Dad,” Danielle said, and Gracie could almost feel her sister rolling her eyes in the dark.

Cody said to Justin, “Can you build a fire?”

Justin stepped away. His face was still lit with wonder, and he shook his head as if trying to wrap his mind around what had just happened. Cody felt the same way as his adrenaline crash started to take hold. He noticed his hands were trembling.

“Yeah, I can make a fire. We’ve had a lot of practice the last couple of days.”

Cody nodded. “Then please gather some wood. Maybe you can get your girlfriend to help you.”

“Her name’s Danielle,” Justin said. “I don’t know if she’s my girlfriend.”

“Can she help gather wood?”

“I guess.”

“Good enough,” Cody said. “I’m going to make a couple of calls and get us out of here.”

An hour later, Cody peered down the crevice. The beam of his Maglite wouldn’t reach the bottom where Jed’s body had ended up. He could see bits of clothing and blood on the walls where Jed’s body had pinballed his way down.

From what he could discern, Jed had been telling the truth. The fuselage of the airplane had been ripped open by the trees and peeled back like the lid of a soup can. One wing had come off and likely fallen to the bottom and the other was mangled and parallel to the crack in the opening.

Two partially clothed skeletons hung from the cockpit by seat restraints. Inside the plane, Cody could see mounds of shredded money as well as a few skittering field mice. It was possible, he thought, there could be some intact bundles of cash buried deep or even down on the floor of the crevice. That would be for the investigators to determine.

He heard a bass thumping in the night sky and turned around. Justin and Danielle had built a massive bonfire that crackled and lit up the rock walls and the trees and threw off so much light the stars had retreated into urban mode. Ted Sullivan lay across two downed logs, suspending his injured tailbone.

Cody said, “Helicopters coming.”

In the distance he could see approaching lights in the sky. Two sets of them. He hoped the pilot of one of them would see the fire from Camp Two and swoop down for the others, as he’d instructed the dispatcher.

He hadn’t noticed Gracie approach him until he looked down. She was a slip of a girl.

“I want to thank you,” she said.

He nodded.

“Justin’s really proud.”

“That means a lot. Your dad should be proud of you.”

“Yeah.” She shrugged.

“Don’t be too hard on him,” Cody said. “He came up here even though he couldn’t ride. He obviously cares about you and your sister.”

Gracie nodded, looking over at her father on the downed trees. “He does, in his way,” she said. “I feel bad that Danielle and I thought he’d run. Rachel pretty much convinced us. You see, he told us why he showed up late at the airport to get us. It turns out he was late because he was booking a weekend at a spa for us in Billings when we were done with this trip. He’d arrived the day before to meet Rachel and he wanted us to feel all girly again when we went back home. And the reason he wasn’t in the camp was because he was feeling sick and resting in his tent. He had no idea Rachel told us that story.”

Cody had nothing to say.

“Rachel had me completely fooled,” Gracie said.

“She fooled a lot of people.”

“Even though she’s dead and I wanted her to be, I feel kind of bad. Jed, too.”

Cody squeezed her on the shoulder. “You should feel that way,” he said. “It’s the difference between you and them.”

She nodded, not sure.

“I hope you don’t mind if I smoke,” he said, digging the last of D’Amato’s cigarettes out of his breast pocket.

She looked up, said, “Justin said you’d quit.”

“Nope,” he said, lighting and inhaling as deeply as he could without falling back into the crevice.