Free Fire

23

Thirty-five minutes later, a caravan of law enforcement vehicles and the EMT van coursed through Mammothwith lights flashing, sirens on, turning the quiet night into a riot of outrage, angry colors, and grating sound. Joe stepped outside his cabin into darkness to see what was going on. The few other visitors in the cabins were doing the same, either parting curtains or opening their doors.

The caravan blasted through the village and down the hill towardGardiner, leaving a vacuum in its wake. It took five minutesbefore he could no longer see the lights flashing on the sagebrush hillside of the canyon or hear the scream of sirens.

Given the inordinate number of emergency vehicles and their display of lights and sound and the dearth of visitors remainingin the park, Joe immediately thought something bad had happened to a ranger-maybe his ranger-and a chill shot through him.

He jogged to a pay phone near the utility building, called Demming’s home. Erin answered crying.

“My mom’s been shot!” she sobbed. “Somebody called for Dad and said my mom’s been shot.”

“Is she still alive?” Joe asked, his head swimming.

“I don’t know, I don’t know. .”

“Erin, stay calm,” he said, not feeling very calm himself. “Let’s not get upset until we know how badly she’s hurt. Don’t assume the worst. People get shot all the time and live through it.”

His words seemed to help, even though he felt like he was lying.

The tiny clinic in Gardiner was popping with activity when Joe arrived. NPS cruisers and SUVs filled the parking lot, and the EMT van that had delivered Demming was parked underthe EMERGENCY entrance overhang, doors still open.

Ashby, Layborn, and a half-dozen rangers Joe didn’t recognizecrowded the small lobby. Layborn was in full dress, Ashby in sweats and running shoes, his hair wild, as if he’d just been called from a run or a workout.

“Is it true?” Joe asked.

“Damn right,” Ashby said. “They found her on the road next to her car. At least two gunshot wounds, maybe more. We don’t know yet.”

“Is she alive?”

Ashby nodded. “Slight pulse, I guess. But her breathing was so shallow the first on the scene thought she was dead.”

“Who was the first on the scene?”

Ashby nodded toward Layborn, who had been watching Ashby and Joe with obvious interest.

“Who did it?” Joe asked Layborn.

The ranger shrugged, said, “Last we know, she called for backup to pull over a black SUV matching the description of the vehicle you saw yesterday. I was on my way but by the time I got there she was already down. I never saw the other vehicle. We found a weapon, though, a thirty-eight tossed on the pavement.We’ve sent it to ballistics and should get some prints.”

Joe shook his head. “If you found it that easily it’s probably a throw-down. My guess is it’ll turn out clean and untraceable.”

Layborn and Ashby exchanged looks. Ashby said, “That’s what I’d guess too.”

“Man oh man,” Joe said, running his fingers through his hair, then angrily rubbing his face. To Ashby, “Have you alerted everyone at the exit gates so the son of a bitch can’t get out?”

Ashby’s face fell. “We don’t man the gates after dark this late in the season. There’s no one there to stop them.”

Joe turned away in frustration.

A few moments later an emergency room doctor wearing jeans, Teva sandals, and a sweatshirt reading WILDERNESS, SCHMILDERNESS opened the door and addressed the rangers.

“She’s in critical condition,” he said, glancing down at his clipboard. “We’re trying to stabilize her but it doesn’t look good. I called off the Life-Flight chopper to Billings for now because I’m concerned about moving her at all. If we see some progress, I’ll call them back.”

Layborn asked, “Is she going to make it?”

“Didn’t you just hear what I said?”

“But if you were to guess. .”

The doctor shook his head, said, “I’ll keep you posted.”

Joe found Ashby staring at him. “What?”

Ashby stepped close to Joe so he could speak in a whisper. “I just keep thinking that Judy would be okay now if you hadn’t showed up,” he said.

“Can we see her?” Jake asked Joe. Erin stood behind her brother in the living room of their house, her face drained, her hair stringy.

“I don’t think so,” Joe said. “The doctor wouldn’t allow anyonein.”

Jake said, “I’d like to get one of my dad’s guns and find whoever did this.” He said it with such controlled fury that Joe reached out and put his hand on the boy’s shoulder.

“We’d all like to do that,” Joe said. “But we don’t know who did it yet. All we know is that he was driving a black SUV.”

“Will they find him?” Jake asked, challenge in his voice.

“Yes,” Joe lied.

He made sure they had food in the house and promised to call them the minute he knew something and to come get them if they would be allowed to see their mother.

“Can you get in touch with your dad?” Joe asked. “Does he know what’s going on?”

“We tried to get him on his cell phone,” Erin said. Her eyes were vacant, wounded. “He didn’t answer.”

“Keep trying,” Joe said. “He needs to get back here.”

Joe wrote down Lars’s cell phone number and put the slip in his pocket, thinking he would try later himself. Maybe it would be best if Lars heard the news from him instead of his children, he thought.

As he left, he looked hard at Jake. “Keep the guns in the closet, okay?”

Jake said, “They’re in a gun safe in my dad’s bedroom.” “That’s good.”

“It would be if I didn’t know the combination,” Jake said.

“But you won’t let him open it, will you, Erin?” Joe said.

“No.”

Jake turned on his heel, punched the air, and strode angrily to his room, where he slammed the door shut.

“You’re in charge,” Joe said to Erin.

“Don’t worry,” she said. “Just help my mom.”

One by one, the rangers left the clinic throughout the night. Several to go out on patrol, searching for the black SUV, several to simply go home and get some sleep so they could take over the search in the morning. Ashby left around midnight, after sending a message to the doctor through the receptionist that he was to be called at any hour if there was progress or “any kind of news.” He left with Layborn, who lingered at the door longer than necessary. When Joe looked up, he got Layborn’s coldest cop glare.

“You going back to the hotel soon?” Layborn asked.

“In a few minutes,” Joe said.

Layborn nodded, left. Joe wondered why the ranger cared where he spent the night.

Joe sat on a worn faux-leather couch, trying to read a Field amp; Stream magazine but finding himself reading the same page over and over without absorbing it. He called Jake and Erin to tell them there was no news.

“Have you gotten ahold of your dad?” he asked.

“Nope,” Jake said. “But we’ve left about a thousand messages.”

Erin took over the phone. “You’re staying at the hospital, right? So you can come get us when we can see Mom?”

Joe immediately dismissed the idea of going back to his cabin. “I’m staying,” he said.

At two-forty-five in the morning, Joe sat on the couch staring blankly at a washed-out photo on the clinic wall of Old Faithful erupting, copies of Bugle, Fly Fisherman, and Field amp; Stream at his feet like discarded playing cards. He was miserablewith guilt and lack of sleep, and growing angrier by the half-hour as he thought it through. If he’d told Demming his suspicions about McCann’s request for protective custody and a transfer, maybe, just maybe, she would have approached the black SUV differently. Possibly, instead of pulling it over, she would have shown more caution and followed it to wherever it was going-which just may have been the Pagoda. Joe thought of Ashby and Layborn in the lobby of the clinic, Ashby upset and pinning the blame on Joe, Layborn furtive and suspicious, eyes darting around guiltily. He should have told her, he thought. By “protecting” her, he may have put her in greater danger. And was he protecting her, or himself? That was a tough question. She had shown nothing but loyalty to Joe, even though she wore the uniform of a park ranger. Had he shown her that same loyalty when he withheld information but acceptedher offer to download video from the entrance gates, thereby jeopardizing her job?

His stomach surged angrily, growled loud enough to hear. He stood and stretched, tried Lars’s cell phone number again and left yet another message, then went outside for some cold air.

He was surprised to see the only NPS cruiser in the parking lot was Demming’s. One of the attending rangers must have driven it down the canyon in the caravan and gone back with someone else. Joe walked up to the car, saw the blood-flecked driver’s door and winced.

It was unlocked. Joe opened the driver’s door and looked inside.Demming’s daypack, jacket, and lunch box were on the front seat and floor. The mike was cradled, the shotgun unbuckledfor quick access.

He shut the door and started back to the clinic when it hit him: Where was her laptop?

He turned and searched again, making sure it wasn’t under her seat, in the trunk, or under the jacket. He clearly rememberedseeing it that morning on the seat between them. It was possible one of the rangers in the caravan had taken it back for evidence, but very unlikely since on the surface a laptop has nothing to do with a roadside bushwhack. And if they took the computer as part of evidence gathering, why would they leave all her belongings in the unlocked car?

No, Joe thought. Somebody involved in the crime-or one of the crimes, there were so many-had taken the laptop. And whoever had it was likely the inside man in all that had happened,the man McCann feared as well.

Joe entered the lobby to find the emergency room doctor bent over the counter, scribbling on his clipboard. He looked up as Joe came in.

“I thought everyone was gone,” he said.

“It’s just me.”

“Are you the husband?”

“No,” Joe said, “just a friend. A colleague.” Joe tried to read something, anything, into the stoic expression the doctor showed.

There was an excruciating silence and Joe felt his fear build to a crescendo.

To his surprise, the doctor said, “It isn’t as bad as I’d thought.”

“Really?”

The doctor nodded. “There are two gunshot wounds, one of them serious. The bullet entered here”-he demonstrated by raisinghis left arm and reaching across his body with his right until his palm rested on the back of his ribs-“and angled up. There’s extensive organ damage and her left lung is collapsed. The slug itself is lodged in her sternum beneath her left breast. She’s lucky as hell it angled to the left instead of to the right, into her heart. But she’s starting to stabilize. Blood pressure is getting better, and her right lung is compensating for the damaged left lung, so she’s breathing almost normally. Based on what I can see, she has a very good chance to pull through.”

Joe almost asked the doctor to repeat himself, to make sure he’d heard right.

“But wasn’t she shot in the head?” Joe asked.

The doctor flashed a grim grin. “That’s what we thought. It sure looked like it when they brought her in, based on the blood in her hair and powder burns on her face. But once we got her cleaned up, we found out that the bullet creased the skull just above her right ear and never broke through the bone. It made a hell of a scratch and it bled a lot because of the location, but all she needed on her scalp were a dozen stitches. It was a fairly small-caliber weapon, thank God. The bullet was diverted by her skull. Up here, most of the gunshot wounds are from heavierweapons, hunting rifles and the like.”

Joe felt a rush of joy, smiled. “Her hard head saved her.”

“I guess you could say that.”

He breathed a long sigh of relief.

“I agree,” the doctor said. “I see no need to send her by chopper to Billings, really. She should go there for observation, of course, since we don’t have the greatest facilities here. We’re more like a MASH unit than a real hospital. I can ask the EMT driver to take her later today. But if I were a betting man, I’d bet on a recovery. Not to say she’ll ever be arresting bad guys again or wrestling bears, whatever park rangers do.”

“I should call her family,” Joe said, but suddenly had second thoughts.

The doctor nodded. “I’ll advise Ranger Ashby.”

Joe said, “I’d suggest you don’t do that.”

The doctor did a double take. “Excuse me?”

“I’d advise you to send her to the hospital in Billings as soon as possible. Call in the Life Flight helicopter so everybody knows she’s gone from here. They’ll assume she’s still in criticalcondition. That is, unless you want someone to come into this clinic and finish her off, I’d advise getting her out of here as fast as you can.”

The doctor tossed the clipboard aside and sat heavily in a visitor’s chair. “Explain,” he said flatly. “I’m listening, but I’ve only got a minute before I need to go back and check on her.”

Joe told the doctor why he was in Yellowstone, who he worked for, what had happened at Bechler and Biscuit Basin. The doctor nodded, listening, but also stealing quick glances as his wristwatch. “None of what you’ve told me gives me a reasonto withhold information.”

“Think about it,” Joe said. “You showed me where she was hit. In the back. Not straight on, where you’d assume the guy she pulled over would have shot her. No, she was shot by who she assumed was her backup. She was shot by a ranger, and probably someone she knew well enough to keep her back to. And whoever did it used a throw-down gun that can’t be traced. Cops think about things like that, believe me. Your average bad guy would have taken his gun with him and tried to get rid of it far away from the scene, or more likely just kept it with him.”

The doctor arched his eyebrows, as if not wanting to buy into Joe’s theory.

“Demming and I got too close to what’s going on up here,” Joe said. “Even though we’re not exactly sure what it is yet. I think one or more of the men in this room tonight pulled the trigger and followed her here. I don’t want him coming back, do you?”

The doctor shook his head, but in a way that indicated he wasn’t too sure.

“She had a laptop in her car,” Joe said. “There was informationon that laptop that might have implicated some people in the Bechler murders and the Cutler death. The laptop is gone. Somebody took it from her car tonight.”

After a few beats, the doctor said, “Do you know who it is?”

“I can’t be sure yet,” Joe said. “But I think I’ve got a pretty good idea.”

“Does he have only one good eye? Like maybe his vision is impaired just enough to miss a head shot by a few inches?”

“Bingo,” Joe said, impressed with the observation.

Their conversation had been so intense he hadn’t noticed the burring of the telephone in the receptionist’s office. She appearedat the counter holding the receiver and gestured with it toward Joe. “He says his name is Lars Demming. He wants to talk to you.”

“I’ve got to take this,” Joe said to the doctor.

“And I guess I need to call the chopper,” the doctor said, risingwearily. “But you better be right about all this. Can you promise me you’re right?”

Joe started to, then shrugged. “Nope. I’m pretty much guessing,as usual. But I’d rather have her in Billings than here, just in case. Wouldn’t you?”

The doctor sighed and shook his head, and went to call for the Life Flight helicopter.

Lars was drunk, shouting and crying. “I leave for one night and my wife gets shot! Shot! I’ll KILL the son of a bitch who did this, I swear to God!” Joe held the phone away from his ear and grimaced. “I’m out with my friends and forget to turn my phone on, and when I get back to the room I have twenty messages! Twenty! My kids crying, you calling. I feel like shit warmed over! Jesus, poor Judy, poor Judy, poor Judy, poor me, poor Erin, poor Jake. .”

The receptionist looked at Joe with sympathy. Lars was hysterical,but Joe thought he needed to cut Lars some slack. Finally,he raised his voice, “Lars!”

Lars stopped abruptly.

“Lars, you need to stay calm. And you need to stay where you are because they’ll be flying Judy to Billings in a few hours. She’ll be there where you are and you can go see her. It will all be all right, Lars.”

“Will it?”

“Yes.”

“Promise me?”

Joe thought he was being asked for too many promises, but he said, “Yes.”

“Which hospital?”

Joe asked the receptionist, then relayed the information.

“I’ll be there,” Lars said. “I’ll fucking be there. My life will mean nothing if she’s gone.”

Joe felt sorry for him and knew he meant it. In his peripheral vision, he saw the receptionist staying close enough to overhear most of the conversation.

“Pickett?” Lars said.

“Yes, Lars.”

“I want you to stay away from her,” he said, his voice catchingwith a sob. “Don’t ever come near her again, or my family. I blame you for all of this.”

“I understand,” Joe said, feeling as though he’d been kneed in the gut.

“None of this would have happened if you didn’t show up.”

“You’re right,” Joe said.

“And if I see you again, I’ll kick your ass.”

“Kick away,” Joe said. “But in the meantime, call your kids and tell them what’s going on.”

“I mean it,” Lars shouted.

“I know you do now,” Joe said, handing the phone to the receptionist.

“Tough,” she said.

Joe agreed.

“Maybe you should go home and get some sleep.”

Joe shook his head. “I’ll go home after the helicopter takes off with her in it. Not before.”

He went outside again to get more air. The stars pounded down on him like hammers. The night sky seemed to press on him as if to drive him into the pavement. He’d never smoked but thought he’d like a cigarette right now.

At four in the morning, Joe snapped awake, surprised that he’d fallen asleep on the couch in the clinic lobby. He sat up quickly, tried to clear his head, wondered what had startled him.

He realized what it was when the receptionist cradled the telephone and looked over the counter at him. “Another emergencycall and the EMTs are on their way,” she said in explanation.“Busy night.”

“What about the helicopter?” Joe asked.

She checked her wristwatch. “It should be here by five. Anotherhour and you can go home.”

Joe thanked her, asked, “What is the new emergency?”

She shook her head. “An assault victim, apparently. I didn’t get many details. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to alert the doctor so we can prep the room.”

Joe waited until the receptionist and the doctor were in the receiving station before slipping unnoticed into the room where Demming lay waiting. The light was dim but he could see the spider’s web of tubing that dripped fluids into her, smelled the sharp smell of antiseptic and soap and fear. She looked younger and smaller in the bed, which was propped up to raise her head. She was slumped a little to the side. Her eyes were closed and she looked serene, but the china whiteness of her skin jarred him, since it made her look cold. He reached up and gently touched her cheek with the back of his fingers to make sure she was warm. She didn’t react to his touch, but he was reassured by the slight puff of breath on his skin, which remindedhim of the sensation produced by the flamers.

He leaned over her. “Judy, can you hear me? It’s Joe.”

Did her eyes flutter? He thought he saw something but couldn’t be sure. Maybe she could hear him but not wake up. Maybe inside she was shouting, but he just couldn’t hear her.

“Who did this to you, Judy? Try and give me a name.”

He thought he saw a slight purse of her lips, but couldn’t tell if it was deliberate or an unconscious tic.

“Give me a name, Judy, and I promise I’ll get him. That’s a promise I will absolutely keep. I’ll get him.”

She didn’t, couldn’t, or wouldn’t respond.

He brushed her hair back, kissed her forehead, and told her Lars would be waiting for her in Billings.

Joe was outside in the predawn, leaning against the brick building, listening for the sound of the helicopter in the utter stillness. His breath billowed with condensation. He rememberedhow he and Victor used to strike tough-guy poses against the fence in the backyard and “smoke” lengths of twig, blowing the steam out like he was doing now. The stars in the eastern sky were losing their pinprick hardness due to the mauve wash of the coming sun.

Four-thirty. He’d decided to wait until six to call Marybeth and tell her not to come. It was too dangerous. He simply couldn’t let her take the chance now, as much as he wanted to see her and his girls.

In the distance, the EMT van sped down the canyon, headlightsstrobing, but with none of the fanfare or sirens that accompaniedDemming’s arrival. Assault victim, the receptionist had said. The van slowed abruptly, with a screech of brakes, and Joe saw a coyote in the middle of the road, in no hurry, loping down the center stripe. Finally, the coyote ran into the brush and the van could continue down the hill until it turned off the highwayand wheeled to a stop beneath the alcove.

The driver and assistant bailed out, the assistant filling in the doctor who had come outside and nodded at Joe. Joe nodded back.

“What do you mean there’s two of them?” the doctor said, annoyed. “The call said one. We prepped inside for one.”

“There’s two, all right,” the assistant said, lighting a cigarette while the driver strode to the back and threw open the door. “One’s in bad shape. The other one might just be passed out.”

Joe froze as they pulled the gurney out and the legs unfolded,snapped into place, and locked. He saw the assault victim’s face clearly, recognized him despite the lumpy, misshapen appearance and all the blood. It was his father. And the second man, the one still slumped in the back of the van, moaning like a steer, was Doomsayer.

The assistant rolled the gurney toward the entrance door, the doctor alongside, reaching under the bloodied sheet to find a pulse.

“Somebody entered with a key or they let him in,” the assistanttold the doctor. “The rangers said there was no sign of forced entry. Then whoever it was just beat the shit out of these two old guys with a billy club or a baseball bat. Luckily in this case, both of these birds were too drunk to resist or it might have been worse. It was probably like hitting rag dolls-they just flopped around. But whoever it was just whaled the holy hell out of them. .”

Stunned, joe identified the victims and confirmed that the assault had taken place in room 231 of the Mammoth Hotel.

By the time he talked to the doctor, Demming had left in the helicopter and the sun had long ago burned off the frost.

His father was in a coma, severe brain damage likely. The chopper was coming back for real this time. Doomsayer had a concussion but would live, and was being left behind for observation.

Joe said, “The beating was meant for me.”

The doctor simply looked at him and shook his head.

In the confusion, Joe had forgotten to call Marybeth and by the time he did, no one was home. He tried her cell phone and got the recorded message that she was unavailable, out of range. He thought of trying to send a message to stop his family at the gate, but thought he was likely too late. He thought, What a night.

As they rolled the gurney toward the helicopter, Joe walked alongside. His father was nearly unrecognizable, his lips swollen like overripe fruit, eyes swollen shut, eyebrows bulging like melons. Joe fished under the sheet for his father’s hand, squeezed it. No response.

The hot tears came from nowhere as the chopper lifted off for Billings, and he angrily wiped them away.

Joe was bone-tired as he drove Lars’s pickup through Mammoth village to the cabins. He was having trouble thinking clearly and was unable to stop his left eye from blinking furiouslywith stress.

Marybeth’s van was parked in front of his cabin, doors open. Nate was helping her carry suitcases from the van into the cabin. They appeared to be chatting happily. Neither recognizedhim as he drove up in the pickup, although Nate shot an annoyed glance in his direction because of the burbling noise of the glasspacks. He could see Sheridan and Lucy wearing sweat-shirts,their blond hair tied back in twin ponytails, sneaking up on a cow elk and her calf eating grass in a meadow that borderedthe cabins.

When he parked and got out, Marybeth saw him, beamed, then switched to a fake angry face. Joe could tell she was about to say: How nice of you to be here to greet us, or Thank goodnessNate was here to show us our cabin. . when she saw the expression on his face and became instantly, visibly concerned.

“Dad!” Lucy cried, turning and running toward him with Sheridan just behind her.

“One big happy!” Nate said, oblivious.