Cold Dish

11

“I do not think the last one of these I was in was like this.”

I looked around at the embossed, luxurious, Italian leather interior, but once again my attention was drawn to the swirling countryside as we ascended the east slope at over 160 miles an hour, a fact of which my stomach was acutely aware. “Don’t talk to me, I’m concentrating on not throwing up.”

“I did not know that they come with doors, and the little bud vases are a nice touch.”

“I’m going to make a point of puking on you first and into them second.”

Henry smiled and looked out the other window while balancing the Weatherby Mark V lightly between his powerful hands, completely oblivious to the speed and altitude. He had raided the small area of army surplus in Dave’s sale department near the back door of the sporting goods store and was wearing fingerless wool gloves; one of the old, reflective-green, M1-style jackets with the genuine acrylic fur lining; a pair of Carhartt overalls; and a new pair of Sorels. He looked like a disco Eskimo. “Did Omar really buy this helicopter at Neiman Marcus?”

I sighed and attempted to put a good seat on my internal organs. “It was in the divorce settlement with Myra.”

“So, she bought the helicopter at Neiman Marcus?”

I belched and placed a hand over my stomach. “He bought it for her when they were getting along. When they got divorced, he took it back.” He was silent for a few moments, but I knew it was too good to last.

“Where exactly is the helicopter department in Neiman Marcus?”

I dipped my head and rested it against the barrel of the Remington pump I carried. “Please shut up.”

He considered the rifle between his knees. “Did the Weatherby come from Nordstrom’s?”

The metal felt cool against my forehead as I listened to the whine of the superchargers on the big Bell engine as it fought to carry us through the thermals the cragged peaks below were creating. I thought about my plan. I had to keep reminding myself that nobody else had thought up this harebrained stuff and that I was responsible for my own misery, but we couldn’t have covered this amount of ground on foot. If we saw anything, if we saw George Esper, we would go down and snatch him up, dead or alive, and get out of there like a Neidless Markup bat out of hell. Just the thought of up and down made my stomach flip again.

He must have noticed me closing my eyes. “You want me to tell you about my first time?”

“Don’t tell me it’s Dena Many Camps.”

He smiled, playing with the adjustments on the rifle’s scope and then readjusting them back. “I remember the first time I rode in one of these things. We were doing a hot extraction out of Laos in ’68 with this NVA colonel we were taking down to the magic fishing village on the coast. We had lost about half our patrol and were flying really low, under radar, maybe a hundred feet off the water. He was pretty sure we were going to throw him out, so sure that he decided to take things into his own hands. He must have tried to hurl himself out of that helicopter half a dozen times. On the sixth attempt, he kicked me in the chin. So, I just folded my arms and figured the next time he goes for the door, this fella better learn how to fly.”

I opened my eyes and looked up at him. “And?”

He continued looking out the window. “He did not.”

“What?”

“Fly.”

I thought about it. “Is that story supposed to make me feel better?”

I looked up at the back of Omar’s head. He wasn’t happy about the current situation either. We were just cresting the meadows at the head of the valley, and the treetops swayed as the big rotors batted them away. I looked past the trees to the sky and made a few more calculations on the weather. I picked up the headset from the console beside me, held one of the cups to my ear, and adjusted the microphone. “Omar?”

He turned a little in his seat, and I could see him speaking. “Yes?”

“I figure about two hours before it hits?”

He studied the horizon ahead. “Maybe three, you never know.”

“Let’s make it two; I want to know.”

He nodded his head, and my stomach did a half gainer with a full twist. I thought about all the light aircraft crashes I had investigated in my tenure as sheriff; it seemed like there was one every couple of years. Good pilots, good aircraft, but the mountain weather was always unpredictable. Between the thermals, downdrafts, and quirky winds, I wasn’t sure how anybody kept the things aloft except with a liberal application of positive thought. “Doesn’t this stuff bother you? Just a little bit?”

He looked at me, slightly swaying back and forth with the movements of the helicopter. “No, it does not.” He watched me for a while longer.

“What does bother you?”

“You, thinking I might be capable of murder.”

I looked at him, with the shotgun’s barrel between my eyes, and tried to figure if this was really something he wanted to talk about or if it was just another distraction. In the end, I decided that it didn’t matter. “You are capable of doing it.”

He nodded. “Physically, technically, I suppose so.” He leaned forward a little. “But do you think I would?”

“Do you think you’d be here if I did?”

He considered this. “There is the old saying ‘Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer.’ ”

“You think you’re an enemy?”

“I am trying to find out if you think I am.” He leaned back in the cream-colored leather and looked up at the monitors on the ceiling. “Sourdough Creek.”

We were more than halfway there. “Try to look at it from my point of view.”

He closed his eyes. Henry could surrender himself to a hypothetical, even if it included making himself the suspect in an ongoing murder investigation. He never worked on a single level. “MMO?”

“Motive.”

“One through three?”

We had played this game numerous times, but never with Henry as the perpetrator. “One?”

He was talking fast with his eyes still closed. “It cannot be conclusively shown that I have ever met Cody Pritchard or Jacob Esper or had reason to have feelings of ill will toward either of them.”

Impossible. “Two.”

“Not only have I met Cody Pritchard and Jacob Esper, but there are hard feelings between us since they took my niece into a basement and raped her repeatedly with their tiny, little, circumcised dicks, with bottles, and with baseball bats.”

A chill was starting at the base of my spine. “Three.”

“I was seen stalking through the courthouse after the trial with a Sharps. 45–70 under my arm and muttering something about Cody Pritchard and Jacob Esper canceling their subscriptions to Indian Country Today.” He opened his eyes. “I give motive a two.”

“Two and a half.”

He genuinely looked hurt. “Why?”

“Al Monroe’s description of the perp, large with long, darkish hair.”

He sighed and pulled the Weatherby back against his chest and folded his arms around it. “All right, two and a half, but I’m not going to be as easy on the next two.”

“Means?”

He thought. “One: I have been stricken by a strange, tropical disease, which has paralyzed both of my trigger fingers.”

“Uh, huh. Two.”

“Both of these boys have been killed by a caliber of weapon of which I am in possession.”

“Three.”

“Ballistics matches this weapon with the slugs that killed both of these boys.” He shrugged and looked out the window. “Two.”

“Means, two.” I studied the lines on his face, and it seemed as if some of the joy had receded from the game. “Opportunity?”

“One: I was in Vatican City with the pope at the time.”

“Two.”

“I was seen in the area of both murders, but no one can place me at the scene of either.”

“Three.”

“I am found standing over both bodies with aforementioned. 45–70 in my hands as both Cody and Jacob respectively gasp out their dying breaths.” He looked back at me. “Opportunity knocks twice?”

I shook my head. “One and a half. You had the argument with Cody at the bar, not too distant from the Hudson Bridge, but nobody saw you on the mountain.”

“Al Monroe’s description?”

“Not a positive identification; anyway, we already used it on motive.”

“What about the feathers?”

“Circumstantial; fake feathers indicate a fake Indian to me.”

He smiled. “I was late running yesterday.” I stared at him for a moment. “No sense playing the game if you can’t play it honestly. A two.”

We sat there looking at each other. The theory was that three out of nine meant you should be looking for another suspect, and nine out of nine meant you started having the suspect’s mail forwarded to Rawlins. Prosecutors usually liked higher than a six before going to trial, so Henry’s six barely let him off the hook. “Looks like you’re innocent, of the murders at least.” I paused. “Honestly, who do you think is doing it?”

“Honestly?” He sniffed and dropped his chin on his chest. “I think it is somebody we do not know. I think it is somebody we have not thought of.”

“A sleeper?”

“Yes. Somebody that is doing this for very strong reasons, something we do not yet understand.”

I nodded. “Do you know Jim Keller very well?”

He looked up, very slowly. “No.”

“Which of the four boys do you consider the most innocent, and whose life’s been messed up by this the most for the least cause?”

“Bryan.” His eyes stayed steady. “The clever thing gets in the way in your line of work, does it not?”

“Sometimes.”

“Is Jim Keller a shooter?”

“He’s supposedly in Nebraska hunting with some friends.”

I watched him turn the wheels. “Would you run off and leave your son here with all these things going on?”

“He never came to the trial.”

The eyes didn’t move. “Neither did I.”

“She wasn’t on trial.”

“The hell she was not.”

I didn’t feel like pursuing that line of answering. “I guess we are back to you. Know your rights?”

“Yes, but it is the wrongs that keep getting me into trouble, Officer.”

We watched the trees swing below as Omar and the department-store helicopter used a variation on the IFR, or I Follow Road, method of navigation to get us to Lost Twin. I thought for a moment and became aware that my stomach had settled. West Tensleep Lake lay at the base of the high valley that continued up the ridge until you got to Cloud Peak, the crowning jewel of the Bighorns. The Indians had named it Cloud Peak because, like most accentuated landmasses, it developed its own weather patterns. It hid from the plains below most of the time, peeking out at us from behind a haze of high-altitude cumulus.

Omar was rounding off the edges to get the most out of his three-hundred-mile travel range. We had been up for the better part of an hour and, through the front glass of the passenger side of the cockpit, I could make out a few cabins that had been built before the government had acquisitioned the land. We were now technically in Big Horn County, but the less said about that the better. By the time we followed Middle Tensleep Creek below Mather Peak we would be back in Absaroka County and my proper jurisdiction. You could feel the lift and roll as the chopper followed the creek toward Mirror Lake and continued up the small valley to our final destination, the Lost Twin. They were both sizable. I noticed Omar’s hand waving in the cockpit. I picked up the headset and adjusted the microphone. “Yep?”

“You’ve got a call on the single band; I’ll patch it through.”

A moment of static, and Ruby’s voice was there in my ear. “Walt, the Game and Fish called. They said there wasn’t anyone signed in at the trailhead to go to Lost Twin, but they said they’ve got a black Mazda Navajo with the plates Tuff-1 at the Tensleep parking lot.”

“That part’s good news. Anything else?”

“Affirmative.”

“Affirmative? Hey, you really are getting the hang of this.”

“Walt, I was going back over the duty roster so that I could write the Roundup for the week. There was a complaint phoned in yesterday morning that sounds suspicious.”

“What’s that?”

“Tracy Roberts, Kent’s sister called; they’ve got that place down on Mesa road, on 115? Well, she and her dad were out feeding cows yesterday morning when the old man saw a porcupine that’d been doing some damage, so he makes her stop so he can shoot it.”

“On the county road?”

“I know, she wasn’t sure if she should call in, but she was angry. She says that somebody came roaring down the road and almost hit the old man.” I waited. “She said it was a green pickup, an old one.” I looked over at Henry, who continued to look out the window at the rushing scenery.

“What time?”

“A little after dawn.” I continued to look at my friend who had just moved above a six. “Walt, do you copy that?”

“Yep, they get a look at the driver?”

“No.”

Radio silence for a few moments. “Roger that. Over and out.”

I pulled the headphone and rested it on my lap and studied him. After a moment he turned. “Something?”

I nodded slowly. “Yep.” I explained about the black Mazda and the lack of sign-in sheet but neglected to mention the sighting of a green truck very much like his.

He smiled. “Lost Twin, how could it be anything else?”

We continued on as I tried to harness the thoughts that made the helicopter seem as if it were standing still. I looked out the side window and watched. I felt the blood in my body shift forward as Omar slowed the helicopter from 160 to nothing and poised over the small ridge that separated the two lakes. I could easily make out the pattern the rotors made on the surface of the water, spiraling dimples that rotated outward to feathering waves that agitated the surrounding shores. Without my asking, Omar began a slow, clockwise rotation to give us the maximum view. Henry went to the door on the other side as I hunched against the Plexiglas window and searched the area for any signs of human activity below.

The lakes are situated at the bottom of the Mather Peak Ridge that touches just over twelve thousand feet. Only through the valley in which we had made our approach could you make any kind of retreat and that was due northwest, the exact direction from which the storm was approaching. So far there were no real signs of the front, and I was beginning to think that the skin-of-our-teeth thing wasn’t going to be an issue when my attention was drawn to the higher peaks to the west. It was still coming; it had just paused for a moment to gather its breath to make the run up the west slope of the Bighorns. The surrounding area was going to be swept into a frozen maelstrom a little before dark. I had every intention of being out of there by then but, just in case, there were two six-thousand-cubic-inch packs lying on the floor between Henry and me. They had extra clothes, food, a tent, two sleeping bags, and enough emergency supplies to keep us going for a little less than a week. Every time I looked at the oncoming clouds, I nudged my boot up against the packs and felt better.

“Hey.” It figured Henry would spot something first. I turned and looked into the cockpit; Omar had seen something too and pointed to an area in a small gully hidden among the trees directly beside the farthest lake. His arm was decorated with three turquoise bracelets. Style. The nose of the helicopter dipped as we accelerated to the area and hovered just above the treetops. There was a small, green tent there, a little two-person job, with a rain fly staked to the ground. It was holding its own against the pounding of the Bell.

I reached up and tapped Omar on the shoulder. He nudged one of the ear cups forward and inclined his head toward me. “This thing got a PA?” He nodded and flipped the appropriate switches on the overhead console and motioned for me to pick up my headset and use the microphone. The helicopter had little bud vases, how could it not have an announcing system? I cleared my throat and listened to it echo from the surrounding mountainsides. I glanced up, as both Omar and Henry looked at me. “Shit.” This too echoed across the peaks.

Henry shook his head. “You think he cannot hear the helicopter?”

I frowned at him and continued. “George Esper?” The volume gave me more of a sense of authority, so I continued. “This is Sheriff Walt Longmire of Absaroka County. If you are down there, would you please reveal yourself to us?” We watched closely as nothing happened, and the only thing I could think of was how difficult it was going to be to find his body in a snowstorm. We continued to scan the area, but nothing was moving down there except with the insistence of the helicopter’s downdraft. I tapped Omar on the shoulder again, but he pointed to the headset and flipped the switches on the overhead. “You see any place you could set down?”

His head swiveled and the helicopter turned to the left. It was like being in Omar’s head, and I wasn’t so sure that was such a great place to be. His arm came up again, indicating a small meadow clearing to the north side of the lakes where the trail swerved and ran along the shore. “There.”

The nose dipped again, and we sideslipped to a very small rock outcropping where the buffalo grass and the small alpine plants were plastered against the hard ground. There wasn’t much room, and the tips of the rotors clipped the large pines that surrounded the area on the north side. I looked back at Omar, but he remained concentrated on the skids as they settled on the bald cap of rock perhaps two feet from a sharp ledge that sloped to the lakeshore below. It was good I didn’t have to pay him, because I couldn’t afford him or his helicopter. He took off his headset and turned in the seat to look at us; there was a large thumping noise as he unlocked the doors of the aircraft. “I want to be clear about this. We have consumed exactly one half of our fuel and, with current conditions, I can say that you have only about forty-five minutes to find George Esper and then have the ride of your life getting out of here.” I scrambled out of the helicopter on the uphill side and waited as Henry tossed me the Weatherby and slid out after me. Omar was pointing at the bags. “Get rid of those; either you use them or we leave them here. When I get ready to head out, I want the least amount of weight possible.”

Henry reached into the luxurious cargo section and pulled the packs across the contoured carpet out after us. As he dropped them on the moss-covered granite he took the. 308 back and saluted Omar through the pilot door. “Sir, yes sir.”

Omar ignored him and looked at me. “Forty-five minutes. You go check on the kid, and I’ll do a run-through on this beast.”

We threw the packs on our shoulders and headed off in a crouch toward the nearest lake. After a few steps, when we were assured we were beyond the slow deceleration of the rotors, Henry leaned toward me. “I do not think he likes me.”

“You’re an acquired taste.”

The patchworks of snow led from all the high areas north, so we abandoned the covered trail for the banks of the lake and quick-stepped it toward the ridge. Once we got there, it was a short traverse to the other side where we had seen the tent. I looked back as we climbed. Somehow, I had gotten ahead of Henry. I stopped and waited as he made his way up in my footprints; if you were tracking him, it would have been as if he had disappeared. He held out his hand, and I pulled him up; to my surprise, he was breathing heavier than I thought he should, so I caught him as he shifted the Weatherby to his other hand. “You all right?”

He looked around at the collection of peaks that ringed the area; there was hardly any lower ground than where we now stood. “I do not wish to dampen your spirits, but this is a wonderful place to be shot.”

“Kind of like being in a toilet bowl.” We were in the open, with the deep cover of pines darkening into the surrounding area. I was having one of those creeping, grave-step feelings. “Let’s go.”

At the end of the ridge, the trail deflected into two paths that circled a large boulder and separated as one continued the high road around the far lake and the other dropped into the depression where the tent was pitched. It was a good spot, dry, but close to water. It didn’t have too much of a view, but it was well protected from the wind. I looked back up the valley to the northwest and could more clearly see the dark line of clouds that continued to eat up the western sky. It was calm at the moment, but the intersecting triangles of black granite and fresh snow seemed to be holding their breath in preparation for what was coming. They looked like long teeth.

Henry put out a hand to stop me and looked down at the path. “Tracks.” He lowered to one knee, shifting his shoulders back so that the weight of the pack wouldn’t propel him down the hill. “How big is George Esper?”

I blew out a breath and thought. “Under six feet, maybe a hundred and seventy pounds.”

“Size nine, Vasque hiking boots?”

I froze. “What?”

He looked up, his eyes very sharp. “Vasque hiking boots, looks like a size nine. Mean something?”

“Is there a little pattern on the arch, like a little mountain range?”

He didn’t look. “Yes.” His neck strained as he scoped the surrounding area. I leaned over his shoulder and looked at the print. “Is there something you would like to tell me?”

I was looking around now, too. “We had prints like these at the scene where Jacob was killed.”

He stood. “So, George was there?”

“We checked them, and one of the guys that reported the incident wore size nine Vasques.”

“What was Jacob wearing?”

I thought back. “The same.”

“Size nine?”

“They are twins.”

“Well, one set of prints is better than two, not that I’d be able to tell the difference.” We continued down the trail to the tent. The rain fly was zipped, and there was a backpack leaned against a tree with the rain cover placed over it. The small ring of a campfire lay cold in the circle of rocks about ten feet from the tent; there was an aluminum frying pan and a plastic bag of corn flour resting on one of the flatter rocks. The heads of a few trout lay in the ashes, along with the strips of bone with connected tails. Henry kneeled by the fire and placed the palm of his hand in the ashes, gently pressing down. After a moment, his eyes came up. “It is old, but there is a little warmth here. Maybe this morning.”

“Any more tracks?”

He nodded. “Vasques, size nine.”

We looked at each other for a moment. “I don’t like this, do you?”

“No.”

He pulled his hand up and dusted it off as I continued over to the tent and slipped the pack to the ground, then crouched and unzipped the rain fly and the screen on the tent. I pulled back and turned to look at Henry. “Well, he spent the night here.”

“But no fishing equipment?”

“No.”

He looked around. “I will take one lake, and you take the other. Here.” He tossed the Weatherby to me and extended his hand for the shotgun. He smiled as he took the Remington. “You are a better shot than I am.” He scanned the surrounding hills. “Just in case there is somebody up there.”

I nodded. “You got the rest of the ammunition?”

He patted his pockets and shrugged. “You only need one, right?” Henry turned and disappeared into the pines toward the eastern lake.

I looked at the rifle and considered whether it was loaded or not. For all I knew the Bear was standing just out of sight, listening to see if I would open the bolt action. I shook my head at the ridiculousness of the situation and pulled the. 308 up onto my shoulder. If he was standing out there, I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of hearing me check. Instead, I readjusted the forgotten. 45 on my hip and made a face at a man I was sure had already begun the search around his own lake. I started off around mine thinking about what Ruby had said. Just because someone had sighted an old, green pickup didn’t mean Henry was a killer. In my experience, smoke usually indicated smoke and nothing more.

There were coal-bed methane operations in the vicinity of the Robertses’ place. To these men, time meant money and time in our part of the high plains meant driving, which to them meant speeding. From economic necessity, a lot of them drive older outfits, and any one of them could have been speeding to or from one of the many rigs in the area at that hour of the morning. I knew I was working up a grand rationalization but just because a truck was green and old didn’t mean that it was Henry’s. Even so, I once again had the urge to pull the bolt and see if the rifle was loaded. I looked back at the other Twin but kept the rifle on my shoulder, considering it a triumph of righteous logic, and wondered how many poor dumb bastards had died in the name of that particular line of thought. I stayed on the path that circled the lake, careful to avoid the wetter sections where the snowmelt had gathered and saturated the ground, but I didn’t see any more footprints. I bolstered my spirits by reminding myself that I’d also not found any bodies.

Vasques, size nine. Had George been with Jacob? If he had, then why? And why would he be at the scene of his brother’s death and then go fishing? Maybe Cody Pritchard did know his killer. My head was starting to swim with all the options, but one thing was starting to come clear: Just because you were a victim didn’t mean you couldn’t be a perpetrator.

I thought about Jim Keller. Mrs. Keller had come into the jail to check on her baby boy and had been somewhat disarmed at finding him in my office with his feet propped up on my desk. He was drinking a ginger ale and leafing through a stack of police supply catalogs. I guess she figured we’d have him chained up in the basement. I asked her about Jim, and she said that he was hunting down in Nebraska with some friends; geese, she said. There was a hesitancy in the way she said it that led me to believe there was something more there. So I used one of my age-old cop tricks and asked her if there was anything else she wanted to tell me. She used one of the age-old mother tricks and just said no. Cop tricks pale in comparison with mother tricks.

I looked back around the crescent ring of mountains and thought about what I would do if I wanted to kill someone here. I thought about how I might lure him into a remote area and then splatter him like a ripe pumpkin. It was about then that I decided to concentrate on taking in more of the scenery. Lost Twin is a lot like the other hundreds of pristine, alpine lakes in the Bighorns that seem to be sitting and waiting for calendar photographers. It lies in one of the mountain’s few hanging valleys, and you could easily envision the tributary glacier that had gently cut this hidden one. With their beds of stone, the Lost Twins had given up little to the forces of erosion. It was as if their hearts had been broken by the retreating glacier, and they were not likely to allow such liberties again. These glaciers formed steps and benches, each successive one at a higher altitude. I had seen pictures of the Coliseum in Rome, and the similarity did nothing to ease my mind. I felt the wind and automatically looked back down the valley. The clouds were starting to move at a surreal pace; evidently, they had caught their breath. Maybe it was the altitude, but the weather always seemed to change more quickly on the mountains.

My attention was brought back to the trees, where I had seen movement. It wasn’t a singular movement, but rather a collection of movements that I quickly dismissed as the wind.

Omar was still fiddling with the helicopter when I reached the hill leading up to the ridge. I stood there, and the air tasted good. I took a little bit of time to breathe in the smells of the pines, the rocks, and the water. There was a large patch of delicate, freeze-dried yellow flowers that lined the south side of the small ridge. Henry would know what they were. He was making his way around the scree-lined bank of the other lake, probably doing a much more thorough job than I had done with mine. I watched as he crouched down and studied a shallow area between the rocks. The acrylic fur wreathed his neck, and the scattergun was resting lightly on his shoulder as he held the pistol grip. He stayed that way, and I had the feeling I was getting a select view of the Athapascan race that had braved the Bering Strait in search of two bigger and better mastodons in each garage. Sometimes I didn’t think his DNA thought things had worked out so well. I wasn’t quite sure why I had decided on the shotgun, other than it balanced out the. 308’s long-range capacities; and, like a good scout, I was always attempting to be prepared, or reverent, or something like that. I continued to watch him as he studied a shallow area between the rocks and peered across the lake toward the area of the tent. As Henry made it to the top of the ridge, I asked, “Anything?”

He shook his head and looked back in the direction from which he had come, as if whatever he might have missed would be more visible from half a mile away. The wind was picking up, and the gusts were becoming more consistent. “Boot prints, same as before, but nothing fresh.”

“What do you think?”

He stretched his legs and tucked the shotgun under one arm; I noticed the safety was on. “Difficult to say with all the scree; he could have gone off anywhere.”

“Alien abduction?”

“Possible, but unlikely. They are usually looking for intelligent life.”

I exhaled a lung full of the good smells, and we both looked down the valley to the trail out. “He’s fishing.”

“Yes, that, or a lyin’ and a molderin’ in the grave.”

I looked back at him. “Let’s concentrate on the fishing, okay?”

“Yes.” He continued looking down the trail. “You need water for that.” He finally looked back at me. “You thinking what I am thinking?”

“Three hours in good weather?”

His eyes watched the clouds; they were even closer than before. “I do not think that is going to be the case. Anyway, four, with the packs.”

I tried not to put too much bass in my voice, “I wasn’t planning on taking them.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Do you mind jumping up and down so I can hear your big brass balls clank?”

“It’s only three hours…”

“In good weather, which we are not going to have.” He looked at his wristwatch as a particularly strong gust caused both of us to shift our shoulders. “Even then, it will be after dark.” I continued to look at him. “We get caught in here without any supplies, we are the honored dead.”

“Yep, but what a blaze of glory.” I was enjoying being the tough guy for a change.

“I am more concerned with the freeze of agony.”

“I have to find that kid, dead or alive.”

I watched as he stretched his back and looked toward Omar, who stood at the nose of the helicopter with his arms folded. My forty-five minute window of opportunity already had the storm shutters closed and was prepared to depart at roughly twice the national speed limit. I briefly thought about telling Henry to go on back without me, but it would have been an insult. So I just stood there, waiting. “We find him dead, we leave him.”

I lied. “Agreed.”

“I will get some supplies from the packs. I refuse to leave here without water and some food.”

“We could always eat George, if we find him.” I watched after Henry as he crossed the ridge toward the tent where we had left the packs. His step seemed to have lost some of its natural spring. I called after him, “How long till snow?”

He called back without turning, “How the hell should I know?”

Maybe we were going to die. I trudged up the hill toward the helicopter and Omar. “You need to get out of here.”

He pushed the Ray-Bans further up on his nose. “What’re you gonna do?”

“We’re going to trail out back to West Tensleep. That kid’s here, somewhere, and I figure the only thing to do is follow the water out.”

“You and the Indian?”

I looked at my reflection in his polarized sunglasses. “Yep.” I didn’t mean for it to have as much warning as it did, but that’s the way it shook out. He didn’t say anything, just opened the cockpit door and reached in to retrieve a handheld that he gave to me. The rotors pitched slightly as another gust rushed up the valley.

“It’s already set at your frequency, so if you need to talk to anybody you should get through, as long as you’ve got reception.”

“Thanks.”

He looked at me for a moment as if memorizing me, and I can’t say it was comfortable. “I notice you’re carrying the. 308.”

“We traded.”

He considered it for a moment. “Make sure he stays ahead of you.” His face was stiff. “I’m not joking.”

I looked at him and thought about saying a number of things. “We’ll be all right.” I waited a moment. “Get in touch with Ferg and Vic and tell them to meet us at West Tensleep parking lot, if you would?” We both looked back at the weather. “Tell them to bring hot coffee.”

Omar sighed a deep sigh, climbed into the helicopter, and held the door open with a foot. He began flipping switches and from the center of the machine a high whine began slowly setting the rotors in motion. He started to place the headphones over his ears but stopped, leaned sideways through the still open door, and shouted to be heard over the increasing roar of the big engine, “You tell that Indian, if he comes out of here alone?”

I waited.

“I will see him dead.”

I lowered my head, held the Weatherby in both hands, and quickly dropped over the ridge. The deep hues of the helicopter’s exterior reflected the lakes; it quickly rose from the rocks and veered toward the center of the valley as a few pieces of the trimmed lodgepole pines scattered and dropped to the ground. A strong blast of the oncoming storm caught the chopper broadside, sending it in a cascading pitch that threatened to drop it in the lake below. Omar deflected the wind pattern and converted the stall into a rolling turn that carried it across the valley. I continued to watch for the next minute as he made the grade and slipped through the pass and down the mountainside toward the safety of Durant International far below. I walked the rest of the way down the hill and met Henry at the ridge. “Neiman Marcus decided not to honor our frequent flier miles.”

“That is what we get for flying coach.” He handed me an abbreviated version of my pack. “The tops disconnect from the rest to make a fanny pack. We both have two bottles of water and a little food, but that is all.”

“A jug of wine and thou…” He didn’t say anything but turned and started off down the banks of the western lake toward the trail that would eventually lead us out. A haze had begun enveloping the hills where the trail disappeared. The fog of low-flying clouds had begun eating the mountains, and we were headed down its throat. I wasn’t quite sure why I was feeling as good as I was. Maybe it was because I had perceived a challenge and had accepted it, or maybe it was because I didn’t see any other options. But I felt good and decided not to ruin it with too much recrimination. I caught up and pulled alongside of him. “He can’t be too far, since he left all his stuff at the lake.”

“Or he is dead.”

“I wish you’d stop saying that.”

He turned his head slightly toward me as he walked. “Would you go out this way fishing and leave all your supplies at the lake?”

“He’s not the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree.”

“Maybe.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

I notice that he had tied some tubular webbing from the packs to the shotgun, making a sling, which he now pulled up higher on his shoulder. “Do you remember what George Esper looks like?”

I thought for a moment. “Yep.”

“I remember what Cody Pritchard looked like, I remember what Bryan Keller looks like, and I have a pretty good image of what Jacob Esper looked like, but whenever I think of George, I cannot seem to bring the image into focus.”

I thought about the pictures, the ones I kept in the Little Bird file, the ones I had cut from the Durant High School yearbook. I had studied them enough over the past few years that I should have been able to tell you every significant feature of George Esper’s face, but I couldn’t. I shook my head. “Look, maybe we’re getting worked up about nothing. Maybe he’s just waiting for his brother.”

He started down the trail and called over his shoulder, “He will be waiting for a long time.”

We climbed the hillside in the Forest Service’s zigzag pattern that led to a granite outcropping where the run-off from the lakes escaped to the rocks below. The wind picked up again, and the cold air found every inch of uncovered skin on my hands, ears, and neck. I looked down the valley and at the trail we would be using as the snow began overtaking everything within a quarter mile. In two minutes, it would be to us. Henry had stopped too, to pull up the government-issue parka hood and to look back at the lakes. I pushed his shoulder. “Considering the situation, why don’t you talk about something happy?”

I watched as he tied the drawstring at his neck. “I thought I was.” He shifted the shotgun from his shoulder and cradled it in his arms, first looking down the trail at the approaching wall of snow, then off to the distant lakes. His eyes softened at the view, and he seemed sad. “These… young men, when they did what they did to my niece? For me, they no longer existed. For good or bad, they were gone.” His eyes returned to mine. “Do you understand?” His eyes stayed with mine. “It is the best I can afford them.”

I waited a moment, but it seemed as if he wanted me to say something. “All right.”

He smiled and once again threw the makeshift strap of the shotgun over his shoulder. “It is far from that, but it will have to do.” He continued to smile, then flipped the flaps down on his fingerless gloves and twisted his fingers into the mitts. The smile warmed me even as the flakes began stinging my face. He threw a paw up and thumped my shoulder twice. “Anyway… Revenge is a dish best served cold.” With this, he turned and walked into the low-flying clouds and the maelstrom of snow that had reached us.

I listened as the drums began a low rhythm and watched as the broad shoulders picked their way carefully down the trail. The world began to turn white, and the Bear disappeared.