“Anyway,” he continued, “the Park Service used to tolerate locals and kind of look the other way when someone crossed the boundary a little bit to get their elk meat for the winter. In fact, there were some old cabins up there that were technically inside the park itself. The rangers knew about them but they didn’t spend any time kicking people out. They had better things to do with their time than to piss off all the locals. I don’t know if those old cabins are still up there or not but I figured it would be a good place to start looking. Frank used to ‘borrow’ one when he hunted up there. I heard him talk about it.”
Cassie said, “Did you take your hearing aids out so you could talk nonstop and not answer my questions?”
“Let me tell you about the other ways the Park Service plays God in Yellowstone…” Bull began.
Cassie used the opportunity to turn aside and punch Leslie Behaunek’s number on her speed dial.
* * *
“WE’RE HEADED THERE NOW,” Cassie said after briefing Leslie. Mitchell was still lecturing in the background. “I’m going to ask Bull to stop at the Park County Sheriff’s office in Livingston so I can let them know what we’re up to.”
“Good,” Leslie said. “It’s about time you involved actual law enforcement.”
Cassie let the dig go. She said, “I know the sheriff there from when I was chasing the Lizard King the first time. His name is Bryan Pederson. He’s a good guy and we got along well. I think I’ll have some credibility with him.”
Cassie could sense Leslie’s relief.
Leslie said, “We’ve got a conference call scheduled this afternoon with North Dakota and Montana to get everyone up to speed on this.”
“I won’t screw it up, I promise. If we locate Ron Pergram or Kyle we’ll back off and call in the cavalry.”
“I believe you won’t try to screw it up.”
“They might not even be in the area but my guide connects Pergram to the area through his father,” Cassie said. “If nothing else we can rule it out.”
“Your guide sounds like quite a character.”
“Oh, he is. He’s crusty and stubborn as hell. And believe it or not he’s going to try to get me on a horse.”
“Take a photo and text it. This I have to see.”
“Doubtful.”
“And call in as soon as you can so I can brief the task force.”
Cassie agreed and disconnected the call.
Bull said, “Crusty and stubborn as hell, huh?”
“You heard.”
“I put my hearing aids in just in time to hear you slander me.”
“It isn’t slander if it’s true.”
Bull stifled a smile as they—mercifully, Cassie thought—pulled off the interstate toward Livingston.
They were nearly into town when the pickup shuddered and the motor stopped running. The truck and tailer coasted down the exit ramp until Bull was able to guide it onto the shoulder.
“Well, shit,” he said.
* * *
“THESE OLD POWER WAGONS are mighty vehicles,” the mechanic said to Bull and Cassie as he wiped coal-black grease off his hands with a dark red rag, “but no matter how reliable they are they still need to be maintained.”
The mechanic had a clean-shaven head but a silver-streaked beard that was so long and full it nearly obscured the name DUB over his coverall’s breast pocket.
Bull growled and looked at the top of his outfitter boots in shame.
“The engine is fundamentally sound,” Dub said to him, “but you’ll need new belts, new air, oil and fuel filters, a thermostat, radiator flush, and a carburator clean-up. Then I think we can get it running again.
“How long has it been since you had it into the shop?”
“A while,” Bull grumbled.
“When can it get done?” Cassie asked Dub. She was trying not to let her frustration show—or her anger at Bull.
“Three hours at most to do the work,” Dub said.
Cassie looked at her watch. They could get into mountains by late afternoon. She said, “That’s not bad.”
“If we had the parts,” Dub explained. “It’s not like we have parts for a sixty-nine-year-old pickup in stock. Luckily, I know a guy in Billings who can get me what I need. He’s kind of a Power Wagon aficionado and he knows somebody headed this way later today who can deliver the parts.”
“So it’ll be ready tonight?” she asked.
“Make it tomorrow morning,” Dub said. Then: “Make yourself at home here in Livingston. Just don’t let the damned wind knock you over. It blows like a mother sometimes.”
She looked over at Bull. “It’s as tough as a damned rock,” she mocked.
He said, “You sound like Rachel. No wonder you two get along.”
While Bull and Dub worked out the logistics of fetching the horse trailer that was still back on the exit ramp with the tow truck, and where the nearest horse-friendly motel was located, Cassie took a deep breath and stepped outside the auto repair shop. Bringing the horses had complicated matters. And driving that old Power Wagon had complicated matters even further.
The mountains of Yellowstone dominated the southern horizon. She felt helpless. She was so close but had no practical way to get there. And she certainly didn’t know the backcountry where Bull wanted to take her. She was his prisoner in a sense.
Cassie pulled out her iPhone and queried the address for the Park County Sheriff’s Department. The map showed it was five blocks away.
Nobody walked anywhere in Montana, she knew. But the walk would do her good and calm her down.
* * *
SHERIFF BRYAN PEDERSON WASN’T in his office at the moment, according to the receptionist who spoke to Cassie through a slot in the thick Plexiglas. The receptionist was in her sixties and had short-cropped silver hair and cat’s-eye glasses that were so old they were back in fashion. Her nameplate said MARGARET.
“He should be back within the hour,” the receptionist said. “You can come back then.”
“I’ll wait here. Can you please tell him I’m here to see him?”
“And your name again?”
“Cassie Dewell.”
Margaret paused as she scrawled out the message. She gave Cassie a long second look. “Do I know you?”
“Maybe. I used to work up in Lewis and Clark County.”
Realization filled Margaret’s eyes.
“You’re that Cassie Dewell?”
“Yes.”
“The one who got in that shoot-out with the state trooper a few years ago?”
“Yes.”
A steel door next to where the receptionist sat required a key code to enter. Margaret noted Cassie looking at it.
“I’d buzz you right through if it were up to me,” Margaret said. Then she gestured toward the cheap plastic chairs that lined the long narrow lobby. “I wish I could do better.”
“It’s fine,” Cassie assured her. One of them was occupied by an American Indian man in a Carhartt jacket clutching a fistful of pink traffic tickets. Cassie sat down in one of the chairs across from him.
“Not comfortable chairs,” he said. He had dark eyes and a pockmarked face. He brandished the violation slips in the air. “I’m waiting for my sister to show up with cash from the ATM. They only take cash. Who takes just cash anymore?”
“I don’t know,” Cassie said. It felt strange to be on the other side of the Plexiglas and the steel door.
“About time they entered the twenty-first century and took credit cards,” the man said.
Cassie used the wait time to text Leslie to report that they’d been held up for the day. She also sent a text to Ben telling him that she loved him and that she’d be home as soon as she could.
* * *
WHAT CASSIE RECALLED about Sheriff Pederson was how kind he’d been to her in the immediate aftermath of the shoot-out. Rather than question her story or motives like the agents from DCI had, or insert himself into the situation in order to take credit for
the outcome like her own boss had done, Pederson had gently guided her through her statement. He knew what she was feeling, he’d assured her.
He’d said, No matter how tough you are or how justified the circumstances, it’s devastating to take another person’s life.
And when they discovered Cody Hoyt’s body buried in that field by the Lizard King and the dirty state trooper, Pederson had held her and let her cry. He’d said very little at the time, but the gesture still meant something to her.
Oddly, though, she couldn’t remember his face other than it was attractive in a raw-boned, cowboy kind of way. He had a thick mustache. She remembered he was tall and thin and he wore a wedding band. She distinctly remembered that wedding band.
* * *
FORTY-FIVE MINUTES LATER, Cassie saw him stick his head into the receptionist office from a door in the back and mouth, I’m back. Then his eyes drifted up and slid off the Indian and found hers. He smiled and mouthed, I’ll be damned.
A few seconds later he opened the steel door.
“Cassie—I thought it was you.”
“It’s me. Do you have a few minutes?”
“Let’s go get a cup of coffee,” he said while holding the door open.
When the man got up as well Pederson said, “Not you, Norman. You stay here until you pay your fines.”
The man sat down with a sigh.
* * *
IN THE SMALL DOWNTOWN DINER across the alley from the sheriff’s department she realized he no longer wore the ring. She tried not to stare.
For the last hour she’d brought Bryan Pederson up to speed regarding the Lizard King and his possible kidnap victim. Pederson was vaguely aware of the formation of the joint task force Leslie Behaunek had created because he’d read a memo about it from DCI just that morning.
“If he’s up there no one has reported anything unusual,” Pederson said.
“That isn’t surprising,” she said. “The Lizard King is supposed to be dead so nobody is looking for him. Plus, we know that he changed his appearance. I doubt anyone who knew Ronald Pergram back then would even recognize him now.”
Pederson nodded. He had more gray in his mustache and temples than she recalled. He’d also lost weight. He looked borderline cadaverous, she thought. She wondered if he’d been sick.
“I can’t believe Bull Mitchell himself is taking you up there,” Pederson said. “He’s a legend around here. Everybody has a story about him. Did you ever hear about the time he took a chain saw and cut a truck in half to settle up with a former business partner? Or about the time a grizzly bear chased him up a tree but the branches broke and Bull fell down on top of the bear and scared him off?”
“No, but now I have one,” she said. “About the time we were going into Yellowstone and made it as far as Livingston before his truck broke down.”
Pederson smiled at that.
“He’s going to meet us here, right?” he asked.
She shrugged. “That’s what he said when I called him but his hearing is … selective. He said something about going to picket the horses behind the motel and make his way over here. So he’ll be here any minute, I’d guess.”
“I want to go with you tomorrow.”
She nodded that she’d heard him.
“I’ve got horses of my own. I’m going to ask Bull if I can bring a couple of deputies along with us.”
“It’s your county,” she said, “but it’s his expedition. You know how he can be.”
“It’ll help if you’re in favor of the idea,” he said.
“My opinion means very little to him.”
“He’s here, isn’t he?” Pederson asked, raising his eyebrows. “He dusted off all his old outfitter gear and fired up that relic of a truck. He loaded his horses up and here he is. I don’t think he’d do that if your opinion meant nothing.”
“You’re right. I need to cut him some slack. It’s just that when I think about Kyle I get anxious. If he’s actually up there with Pergram every minute counts.”
“I understand,” Pederson said. “But you’re dealing with vehicles, horses, and a mountain search and rescue operation. Time isn’t the same up there as it is here in the big city. Everything slows down the closer you get to Yellowstone.”
She nodded. “I’m sorry to ask you this but will involving you and your guys slow us down even more?”
“A little. But my guys will be gung ho to go. The tourist season is over and there isn’t a lot going on right now. The opportunity to get Pergram is something no one in law enforcement around here could pass up.
“Besides,” Pederson said, “if the Lizard King really is up there somewhere you can use more firepower. We don’t want him getting away from us again.”
“Thank you for saying ‘us’ and not ‘me.’”
“I’ll let my office know I won’t be there tomorrow,” he said. “Tonight I’ll call two of my horse-savvy guys. They’ll jump at the chance to come along, believe me. And I’ll compare notes with Bull to coordinate everything. I’ll let him call the shots.”
She didn’t want to ask him about his missing ring. But he didn’t seem like the kind of man who would say anything about it unless prompted.
Before she could think of a way to bring it up, the door opened and its frame was filled with Bull Mitchell.
“Can a man get a beer around here?” he boomed.
* * *
BULL WAS ON HIS fifth Coors Original and Pederson his third when Cassie’s phone lit up.
She looked at the screen, then at Bull. “It’s Rachel.”
“Don’t answer,” Bull said. “She’ll try to talk you into going back. Besides, she doesn’t know where we are—whether we’re in cell phone range or not.”
“I don’t feel very good about that,” Cassie said as the call transferred to her voice mail.
“It’s for her own good,” Bull said with finality.
He turned to Pederson. “Do you know why they call me Bull?”
“No.”
“Cause he’s hung like one,” Cassie said.
“You’ve heard!” Bull laughed, slapping the table with his big hands.
“Cody said you’d explained it to him,” she confessed.
* * *
THEY AGREED TO ALL MEET in the parking lot of the Tomahawk Motel the next morning as soon as Pederson’s men had caught their horses, loaded them into trailers, and geared up.
By then, Cassie hoped, Bull’s truck would be ready to get back on the road.
She left Pederson and Bull inside to talk logistics and order another round.
Outside on the sidewalk she turned toward the south. The mountains could be made out only because they blocked out the night sky and stars. It was twenty degrees colder than when they’d crossed the alley to enter the diner.
“Maybe tomorrow, Kyle,” she whispered. “Stay strong, little man.”
CHAPTER
TWENTY-FOUR
EARLIER THAT EVENING and fifty-four miles away, as they approached the small National Park Service building at the north entrance in the Ford pickup, Ron said to Kyle, “We’re just a dad and his son visiting Yellowstone National Park. Can you do that, Kyle?”
“Yeah.”
He was starting to understand the boy’s odd speech pattern.
It was five-thirty in the evening. Tiffany’s body, which had been rolled up in the blue plastic tarp, was on the floorboards in back. It was covered by two dark blankets as well.
Ron thought: I’m still the Lizard King.
* * *
HE’D LEFT AMANDA with her arms and ankles duct-taped to a chair facing a corner in the cabin. She’d been bawling her eyes out even after he’d smacked her and told her to stop it, so he’d double-taped her mouth shut. Before they left he made the conscious decision not to feed the dying fire in the woodstove.
She’d spend hours sitting in that corner in the dark, feeling it get colder inside the cabin because of the open window, really thinking about the stupid th
ing she’d tried to do.
Thinking about how she got Tiffany killed.
* * *
HE’D MADE THREE STOPS in Gardiner on their way into the park. Gardiner was hard on the border of the park itself. The Roosevelt arch proclaiming FOR THE BENEFIT AND ENJOYMENT OF THE PEOPLE was within sight of town.
The first stop was on a side street in an unincorporated subdivision that led to a transient trailer park filled with camper trailers and single-wides. He’d explained to Kyle that the camp was used primarily by seasonal concession workers who couldn’t find housing inside the park during the summer months. Because the season was over, many of the lots had been freshly abandoned.
The transients had left black plastic bags of garbage and things they didn’t want to take with them, as well as a few vehicles that no longer ran.
Ron pulled up behind a battered 1982 Dodge pickup mounted on blocks and swapped out the North Dakota plates on the Ford for the Montana plates on the Dodge.
The second stop was at the hardware store and he asked Kyle to come inside with him.
He’d said to Kyle, “Remember: You’re a kid spending time with your dad. Stick close and keep your mouth shut even though that doesn’t seem to be a big issue with you. Oh, and pull your hood up. I don’t want anyone seeing that collar.”
Kyle did as he was told.
The boy followed him inside and kept his head down as Ron bought an aluminum-framed window to replace the broken one back at the cabin.
At the third stop, the Gardiner Market on Scott Street, Kyle played his part extremely well, Ron thought. The boy shadowed him as he pushed his cart down the narrow aisles and acted as bored and sullen as any other teenager. When asked if he wanted thick-cut bacon or regular bacon, Kyle had shrugged.
Ron wasn’t worried about standing out in this small town. It was a tourist town, after all. Only in the deep winter did residents notice strangers.
Kyle’s only transgression was when he mishandled a jar of olives and dropped it on the floor where it broke. The boy’s face turned bright red as he bent to gather up the shards of glass. The odor from the spill was strong and Kyle was so upset by what he’d done he accidentally kicked a few dozen individual olives across the floor trying to gather them up.