Killer Summer

74

Three to four hours to go,” Brandon said to the other two men, slipping his GPS device back in his pocket. He was riding a chestnut filly with a blond mane, a showcase quarter horse with a gait as smooth as a Cadillac’s. All three riders wore headlamps, a bluish glare illuminating the narrow trail ahead.

“How long can the horses keep up this pace?” Walt said. He was not a regular in the saddle.

“Longer than you can,” Brandon said. “They can trot for hours, they’re fine. But it won’t be too much longer now before we have to walk them, anyway. Terrain’s not getting any better.”

“We’ll ride them ’til they drop,” Jerry asserted.

“No, we’ll walk them,” Walt corrected. “And we’ll hike the last half mile without them so they don’t give us away. They’re our way in. They may be Kevin’s only way out.”

Jerry was turning in his saddle to object but nodded instead. “Yeah, okay.”

The sudden agreement silenced all three.

Brandon consulted the GPS.

“Looks to me like the trail runs out pretty soon,” he said.

“First light,” Jerry announced.

They’d agreed that their best odds of reaching Mitchum’s Creek Ranch unseen was to cross the Middle Fork before sunrise, before four A.M. Daylight diminished any element of surprise considerably.

Walt thought unlikely they’d meet this worthy goal. They had to hobble the horses, inflate the raft, and make the crossing-all very time-consuming.

“This guy Sumner,” Brandon said, “he made Mastermind, right?”

“He produces movies,” Walt said.

Something sparked at the back of his tired brain. A voice was shouting at him. But whose was it?

“You think if we get his daughter out safe and sound he’ll make it into a movie?”

“Put a sock in it,” Jerry said.

Walt tried to focus on the voice in his head. It wasn’t Fiona’s voice, it wasn’t his own. It definitely was a man’s voice… Something about movies…

“What about Mastermind?” Walt said, trying to stimulate whatever had prompted the mental itch.

“It was so-so,” Brandon said. “Fairly predictable.”

“It was a heist movie,” Walt said.

Flickers of an earlier conversation… The voice belonged to Arthur Remy.

“Absolutely. Horse racing, hitting up the track on the day of the biggest race of the year. The bad guy stole the movie, the Mastermind guy. He was the best thing about it.”

“But he had his fifteen minutes. You’re aware of that, right?”

Walt had it. He reined his horse to an abrupt stop. Brandon reined his horse but Jerry’s kept trotting.

The satellite phone rang as he was reaching for it. His mind was elsewhere as he answered.

“Dad!” Walt called out to Jerry, who still rode on.

“Stay with him!” Walt said to Brandon. “Stop him if you can. We ride together.”

Brandon passed Walt the lead rope to the pack horse as Walt spoke into the phone. The bluish hue of Brandon’s headlamp disappeared into the curtain of tree trunks.

“It’s me,” Steven Garman answered back, his voice just audible above the growl of an engine “I’m at nine thousand feet, directly over the river.”

Walt had heard a small plane not twenty minutes earlier. He’d switched on his phone and had caught a signal briefly. The phone had buzzed repeatedly with incoming messages. The connection was lost before he could check them.

“I’ve got the repeater on board and up and running,” Garman said. “Damn, if the thing didn’t light up about five minutes ago.”

“I had reception about twenty minutes ago. Didn’t last long.”

“I’m talking five minutes ago. I’m well north of you. Didn’t last for me either.”

“Kevin?”

“Could be one phone… could be ten. I had the hit only a few seconds. I came around and headed upriver, throttling back to limit engine noise. I’m now a mile west of my earlier route. I’d like to get closer and try again.”

“Only one pass,” Walt said, “as quietly as you can, directly over the ranch. See if the repeater gets a hit. If it lights up, then circle and try to hold the connection. I’m going to start calling Kevin’s cell from the sat phone and hope I get through.”

“Copy that,” Garman said. “Turning for the ranch now.”

Walt was about to punch in Kevin’s number when he realized that it would take Garman a few minutes to get in position. That gave Walt time to make another call first.

He punched in the numbers and hit SND.