Long Road to Mercy

Chapter 3

The Grand Canyon was one of the seven natural wonders of the world, and the only one located in America. It was the second largest canyon on earth, behind Tsangpo Canyon in Tibet, which was a bit longer but much deeper. The Grand Canyon was visited by five million people from around the globe every year. However, no more than 1 percent of those folks would ever reach the spot where Atlee Pine was currently: the banks of the Colorado River right on the floor of the canyon.

Phantom Ranch, located at the bottom of the Canyon, was not only the most popular under-roof accommodation down here, it was the only one. Those who trekked down here could do so in one of three ways: by water, on a mule, or courtesy of their own two feet.

Pine had driven to the Grand Canyon National Park Airport. There, she had climbed inside a waiting National Park Service chopper and made the vertical descent to the canyon bottom. After landing, Pine and her companion, Park Service Ranger Colson Lambert, had immediately set off on foot.

She strode along, eating up ground with her long legs, her gaze looking and her ears listening for rattlers. That was one reason nature had given them a rattle — to make people leave them alone.

Where’s my rattle? thought Pine.

“When was it found?” she asked.

“This morning,” replied Lambert.

They passed a slight curve in the rock, and Pine eyed a blue tarp that had been erected around the remains of their victim. Pine counted two men there. One was dressed as a wrangler. The other, like Lambert, was in the uniform of the National Park Service: gray shirt, light-colored, flat-brimmed hat with a black band on which were printed the letters USNPS. Pine knew him. His name was Harry Rice. In physique, he was a carbon copy of Lambert.

The other man was long and lean, and his face had been viciously carved by the outdoor life he led in an unforgiving environment. He had thick, graying hair that had been shaped by the wide-brimmed hat he held in one hand.

Pine flashed her badge and said, “What’s your name?”

“Mark Brennan. I’m one of the mule wranglers.”

“Did you discover it?”

Brennan nodded. “Before breakfast. Saw the buzzards circling.”

“Be more precise about the time.”

“Um, seven thirty.”

Pine passed by the privacy tarp, squatted down, and looked over the carcass as the others gathered around her.

The mule weighed more than a half ton, she figured, and would stand about sixteen hands high. A mare bred with a donkey produced a mule. They pulled more slowly than horses, but were surer footed, lived longer, and pound for pound were about as strong as anything on four legs and possessed enormous endurance.

Pine slapped on a pair of latex gloves she had pulled from her fanny pack. She picked up a whip lying next to the unfortunate animal. Called a motivator by the mule wranglers, it was used by the riders to convince the mules to ignore the pleasures of grass sticking out of the rock on the trail, or the advantages of simply taking a nap standing up.

She touched the severely stiffened foreleg of the beast.

“It’s in rigor. Definitely been here a while.” Pine said to the wrangler, “You found it at seven thirty. Was it stiff like now?”

Brennan shook his head. “No. Had to chase some critters away, though. They were already starting to get into it. You can see that there and there,” he added, pointing to various places where flesh had been ripped away.

Pine checked her watch. It was six thirty p.m. Eleven hours had passed since the mule had been found. Now she needed to establish a parameter at the other end.

She shifted her position and looked at the belly of the beast.

“Gutted,” she noted. “Upward stroke and then a slit along the belly.” Pine looked up at Brennan. “I take it this is one of yours?”

Brennan nodded and squatted on his haunches. He looked sadly at the dead animal. “Sallie Belle. Steady as a rock. Damn shame.”

Pine looked at the dried blood. “Her death wouldn’t have been painless. No one heard anything? Mules can make a lot of noise, and this canyon is one big subwoofer.”

“It’s miles from the ranch,” suggested Rice.

“There’s a park ranger station down here,” noted Pine.

“It’s still a long way away, and the ranger on duty didn’t hear or see anything.”

“Okay, but there had to be plenty of hikers and boaters at the Bright Angel Campground next to Phantom Ranch. The Ranch can’t accommodate all of them, and the rest go to Bright Angel for the most part. And while I know it’s ‘a long way away,’ the mule had to get from the Ranch corral to here.”

Lambert said, “There were lots of people there. But no one we talked to saw or heard anything.”

She said, “More to the point, who has the balls to lean under a mule and start slicing into its belly?”

Brennan said, “Right. And my two cents? You gut a mule you’re going to hear it in the next county.”

Pine eyed the saddle. “Okay, so who and where is the rider?”

“Benjamin Priest,” said Rice. “No sign of him.”

Brennan took up the thread. “He came down yesterday. Part of a crew of ten.”

“That’s your limit, right?” said Pine.

“Yeah. We bring two groups each day. We were in the first group.”

“So, he rode down here and then what?”

“We stopped overnight at Phantom. We were going to head out this morning after breakfast. Over the Black Bridge and back up to the South Rim. Just like normal.”

“It’s about five and a half hours down and close to the same back up?” said Pine.

“Just about, yeah,” agreed Brennan.

Pine surveyed the area. It was over eighty degrees on the canyon floor and twenty degrees cooler on the South Rim. She could feel the sweat collecting on her face and armpits and around the small of her back.

“When was it noticed that Priest was missing?”

Rice said, “This morning when folks came to the dining hall for breakfast.”

“Where was Priest staying? In one of the dorms or a cabin?”

Brennan said, “One of the cabins.”

“Tell me about last night.”

Brennan said, “They all had dinner in the dining hall. Some folks played cards, wrote postcards. Some sat on boulders and cooled their feet in the creek. Typical stuff. Then everyone went off to their sleeping quarters, including Priest.”

“When was the last time anyone saw him?”

Rice answered, “Best as we can tell, around nine last night.”

“But no one actually saw him get in his bunk or leave the cabin later?”

“No.”

“So how did Sallie Belle get here?” she asked, looking at Brennan.

“At first I just thought she had gotten out somehow. Then I noticed her saddle and bridle were missing. Someone had to put them on her.”

She continued to watch Brennan. “What were you thinking when the mule was missing?”

“Well, I thought maybe somebody had decided to go off on a joyride before breakfast.” He shook his head. “I’ve seen folks do some crazy shit down here.”

“Describe Priest.”

“Late forties, early fifties. About five feet eight. Around one eighty.”

“White? Black?”

“White. Dark hair.”

“Good shape?”

“He was thick. But not really overweight. No marathon runner, though.”

“You have a two-hundred-pound limit for mule riders?”

Brennan nodded. “That’s right.”

“Did you ever talk to him?”

“Some, coming down.”

“Seem nervous?”

“He looked a little green a few times. Mules have fused spines and they walk along the outside of the trail. So their torsos and, along with them, the riders, are sometimes going to be over the edge. It can be unnerving at first. But he soldiered on.”

She looked at Lambert. “What do you have on him?”

Lambert took out a notebook and unclipped the cover. “He’s from DC. Works at one of those Beltway government contractors. Capricorn Consultants.”

“Family?”

“Not married, no children. Has a brother who lives in Maryland. Parents are deceased.”

“So you’ve notified him?”

“He was listed as the emergency contact on Priest’s paperwork. We let him know that his brother is missing.”

“I’ll need his contact info.”

“I’ll email it to you.”

“How did his brother sound?”

Rice answered. “Worried. He wanted to know if he should fly out. I told him to sit tight. Most people who go missing do turn up okay.”

“But some don’t,” replied Pine. “Where’s his stuff?”

Lambert said, “Gone. Must’ve taken it with him.”

Rice said, “His brother phoned Priest after I talked to him. Also tried his email. He called me back and told me there was nothing. No response.”

“Social media activity?”

“I didn’t think to ask about that,” said Rice. “I can follow up.”

“How’d he get here? Car? Bus?”

“I heard him say he came by the train,” volunteered Brennan.

“Where was he staying?”

Rice said, “We checked at El Tovar, Bright Angel, Thunderbird, and the rest of the possible places. He wasn’t booked at any of them.”

“He had to stay somewhere.”

“It could have been at one of the campgrounds, either inside the park or nearby,” noted Lambert.

“Okay, he took the train up here. But if he came from DC he probably first flew into Sky Harbor. He might have stayed somewhere there until he went to Williams, Arizona. That’s where the train leaves from, right?”

Lambert nodded. “There’s a hotel at the train depot. He might have stayed there.”

“Have you made a search down here?”

“We covered as much ground as we could. No trace so far. And we’re losing the light.”

Pine took all this in. In the distance came the sharp bark of a coyote followed by the echoing rattle of a snake. There might be a standoff going on out there between predators as the lights of nature grew dim, thought Pine. The muscular walls of the canyon held a complex series of fragile ecosystems. It was the human factor that had intruded here. Nature always seemed to get on all right until people showed up.

She turned her head to the left, where a long way away lay Lake Mead near Arizona’s border with Nevada. To the right, and also a great distance away, was Lake Powell in Utah. In between these two bodies of water sat the gargantuan Canyon, a deep gash on the surface of Arizona, visible not only from an airliner at thirty-five thousand feet, but also from outer space.

“We’ll need to bring in an organized search team tomorrow and go grid by grid,” said Pine. “As far as possible. What about the other mule riders with Priest? And the campers?”

Lambert said, “They all headed out. Some before we even knew Priest was missing.”

“I’ll still need all their names and contact info,” said Pine. “And let’s hope if something did happen to Priest that we didn’t let whoever did it hike or ride a mule or raft it out of here.”

Lambert looked uncomfortable with this and quickly glanced at his fellow ranger.

“Anybody keep watch over the mules during the night?” Pine asked.

Brennan shook his head. “I checked on them around eleven last night. Everything was fine. We got some coyotes and mountain lions down here, but they’re not going after a pack of mules in an enclosure. They’d get the shit stomped out of them.”

“Right, like someone would have when they gutted her,” said Pine pointedly, looking at the dead Sallie Belle. “So at least at eleven, Sallie Belle was alive. The ranger on duty didn’t hear anything. What’s his name?”

“Sam Kettler.”

“How long’s he been with NPS?”

“Five years. Two here at the Canyon. He’s a good guy. Exmilitary.”

“I’ll need to talk to him,” said Pine as she mentally catalogued all she had to do. Then her gaze ran over the dead animal. Something was not making sense.

“Why is the bleed-out above the mule’s withers? It should be below the belly.”

She looked up at the men, who stared blankly back at her.

“The mule’s been moved,” Pine said. “Help me turn her.”

They each grabbed a leg and maneuvered the dead animal onto her other side.

There, carved on the mule’s hide, were two letters: j and k.

“What the hell does that mean?” said Lambert.

What the hell does that mean? thought Pine.