Pompy shook his head yes in the other truck. “I don’t want to try another hill like the one we were just on with this horse trailer.”
“Me either,” Thomsen said.
“So what kind of time frame are we talking about with those two choices?” Pederson asked.
Bull said, “If we drive around it might take all the rest of the day and there’s no guarantee we’ll find the road that takes us to those cabins. But if we saddle up here and start riding we should get to the top by nightfall. The risk is that we’ll be traveling light and more exposed if something bad happens.”
Pederson nodded while he thought it over.
“Your call,” Bull said to Pederson. “You’re the sheriff.”
Pederson looked to Cassie. “You’ve got to make the decision.”
Before she could reply her phone went off again. Leslie again.
Cassie said, “Give me a moment to take this. If Leslie’s calling this many times there must be something important to tell me.”
There was only one bar of cell service and that would soon be gone. Cassie sighed and punched it up.
“Thank God you answered,” Leslie said. The connection was scratchy and faint.
When Bull started to say something to Pederson, Cassie shushed him. Bull rolled his eyes in response.
“Where are you?” Leslie asked.
“Halfway up the mountain. It’s hard to hear you.”
“… aren’t the only people up there,” Leslie said. The first part of the sentence was lost in the ether.
“Come again?” Cassie said.
“I said you aren’t the only people up there going after the Lizard King.”
Cassie heard it clearly this time but it didn’t make sense.
“… and his special operations team. They landed their plane in Bozeman and they’re trying to nail Pergram on their own before you can find him.”
“Who landed?” Cassie started to ask but stopped herself. Suddenly it made sense. “Are you saying Special Agent Craig Rhodine and his Critical Incident Response Group are here in Montana?
“Affirmative,” Leslie said.
“How would he even know to be here?”
“My fault, I guess,” Leslie said. “We kept North Dakota BCI in the loop as part of our task force like we should have. But from what I’ve been able to find out your old nemesis County Attorney Avery Tibbs has been in contact with the FBI every step of the way…”
A full ninety seconds of what Leslie said was garbled by poor reception. Cassie could clearly hear only a few words and phrases:
“Tibbs in cahoots …
“ATVs rented out of Bozeman …
“On their way …
“Get there first …
“Clusterfuck.”
“I think I understand what you’re telling me,” Cassie broke in. Kirkbride’s late night warning call to her in Ekalaka now made complete sense. “Do you have any idea where the feds and Tibbs are right now?”
“I only got part of that,” Leslie said.
“WHERE ARE THEY?”
“On their way up the mountain to wherever you are headed.”
Cassie closed her eyes. She said, “I don’t care if they get there first. I could care less that they used me to figure it out. But if Kyle gets hurt in the process…”
“I’m sorry,” Leslie said. “I can’t…”
“Never mind,” Cassie said. “Thank you, Leslie.”
Cassie disconnected the call. She looked over to see Pederson and Bull studying her.
“So you got that,” Cassie said.
“Kind of,” Pederson said.
“An FBI hothead has been monitoring everything I’ve done to find Kyle and Pergram. My old county attorney has been feeding him everything that’s happened with the joint task force. Both of those guys have it out for me because of what happened in Grimstad. And now they’re up here somewhere.”
“Where?” Pederson asked rhetorically. “They’re not behind us and there are no tracks across that microburst.”
“I’d guess they’re coming up the other side,” Bull said. “On those old roads I told you about.”
“Will they get there first?” Cassie asked Bull.
“Hard to say. What are they driving?”
“Leslie said something about ATVs.”
“Four-wheelers,” Bull translated. “I guess it depends when they left and if they can figure out how to get to those cabins. Problem is, the cabins are hard to find and they’re not on any maps. And even if they know where they are—like if they’ve got satellite images of them or something—they’re not exactly going to sneak up on anyone inside riding those electric razors on wheels.”
Cassie rubbed her eyes and bit her lip. Things were moving fast and she had no idea how to slow them down or regain control. She could visualize Rhodine and Tibbs roaring toward the poacher cabins. She tried not to visualize what Pergram would do if he heard them coming.
“So…” Bull said, looking to Pederson and Cassie for guidance.
“Let’s go from here,” Cassie said. Before Pederson could reason with her about it she was out the door.
“Mount up, boys,” Bull said to Deputy Pompy and Deputy Thomsen. “We’re burnin’ daylight.”
* * *
AFTER FORTY-FIVE MINUTES in the saddle, the adrenaline wore off and was replaced by an ache in her lower back and stabs of pain from her inner thighs. Gipper high-stepped through the downed trees and took elaborate routes around particularly thick ones. He wasn’t blazing the trail but closely following Bull’s gelding, and Gipper would patiently pause while Bull’s mount negotiated the best way through the blowdown toward the wall of standing trees. Many times the horse had to backtrack and find a better approach. Cassie figured the horse knew better how to negotiate the microburst than she did, so she simply tried to hold on and keep her balance so she wouldn’t be pitched out of the saddle by a sudden turn or acceleration.
“Slow goin’,” Bull said as once again his horse stepped back when it encountered a tangle of trees too formidable to step over to find a new path around. “It’s like two steps forward and one step back. But we’re getting there.”
She noted that as slow and lumbering as Bull Mitchell was on the ground, he was a different man when he was in the saddle. His movements were calm and economical, and his ability to shift his weight to aid the progress of his horse was subtle but impressive. He is a man, she thought, who should always be on horseback.
* * *
IT TOOK OVER AN HOUR to reach the outer border of the microburst. Gipper finally cleared the downed timber and he hopped forward onto a grassy patch with triumph. Cassie nearly lost her balance with the leap and she inadvertantly dropped both reins as she lunged for the saddlehorn. But once he was on flat mountain meadow, Gipper stood still.
Before she could lean forward along his neck and retrieve the reins Bull turned his horse, gathered them up, and handed them to Cassie.
“Don’t lose those,” he said with a wry grin. “Makes it hard to steer.”
She snatched them back.
* * *
THE FIVE-HORSE EXPEDITION WALKED single file across the meadow until it was swallowed by the sea of dark pine. Bull led, followed by Cassie, Sheriff Pederson, Pompy, and Thomsen.
Cassie tried not to be miserable but it had been a long time since she’d been on a horse. And not just a trail horse shambling along nose-to-tail, but a working quarterhorse in mountain terrain. The pain numbed her and she tried not to think about it. Instead, she contemplated the team of Rhodine and Tibbs on the other side of the mountain with the same destination in mind.
She tried not to dwell on the fact that they’d used her the way they had. Not if the end result was taking down Pergram and rescuing Kyle. But the complete lack of respect they’d shown toward her, not even informing her they were tracking her investigation, saddened her. She’d rather have outright enemies than men who took her hard work for granted and exploited her.<
br />
It hurt.
* * *
THEY WERE HOURS DEEP into the dark timber and always ascending. The only sounds were chattering squirrels and the moan of tall trees that rubbed together in the breeze. The footfalls of the horses provided a soft thumping cadence to the journey.
Cassie learned that when she relaxed and sat back in the saddle, Gipper relaxed as well. She stroked his neck and told him he was a good horse.
As she sat back she was reminded that Gipper was the horse Cody Hoyt rode into Yellowstone as well. She wondered if Gipper had horse memories of her boss and mentor, or if he was just another fidgety dude on his back years before.
* * *
THE REALLY HARD PART was climbing off Gipper when they finally stopped for the night. Cassie was stiff from riding and she rubbed the hot spots on her inner thighs through her jeans. She gladly handed the reins to Pompy who’d offered to unsaddle Gipper and water him at a narrow mountain stream.
As the sun slid behind the western summits it got remarkably cooler. While the men had no problem simply turning away from her to urinate, Cassie had to make a quest of it. She walked away from the men and the horses into the lodgepole pines and didn’t stop until she could no longer hear them. Along the way she tried to work the kinks out of her back and relax her shoulders. The ground felt solid beneath her boots and although she’d grown to appreciate Gipper, she was glad to be off him.
When she returned she noted that Sheriff Pederson had started a fire and Bull was unwrapping the steaks. A fifth of Jim Beam was perched on the top of of a tree trunk and it was already a quarter gone.
“Aren’t you worried about him smelling the smoke?” she asked Bull.
“Naw. We’re still a long way away. Besides, this is Yellowstone. There are all kinds of smells.”
She sniffed and got a whiff of far-off sulfur. Pompy and Thomsen appeared from the pine forest with armfuls of firewood.
“What can I do to help?” she asked.
“You can brush down the horses,” Bull said. “Do you know how to do that?”
It wasn’t an unkind question. He didn’t know she’d spent a lot of time around her grandfather’s horses when she was growing up near Helena.
“I can do that,” she said.
On the way to where the animals were picketed in a small mountain meadow she took a drink of the bourbon. It teared her eyes but in a good way.
“Do you have your gun?” Pederson asked her.
She shook her head. “In my saddlebag.”
“I’d suggest you take it with you,” the sheriff said. Then, raising his voice so his deputies could hear as well, he said, “I’d suggest we remain armed at all times from here on out. You never know who we’ll run into—or who might run into us.”
Cassie returned to where her saddle was draped over a downed tree and clipped her Glock in its holster to her waistband. He was right.
* * *
AFTER A DINNER of big steaks and canned pork and beans, Cassie sat on a saddle pad with her back against a tree and watched the fire from between her upraised knees. She’d forgotten how quickly it got cold high in the mountains, or how brilliant the stars were in the sky.
Although it was still early she fought against nodding off. Her sleeping bag was unfurled to her right and her weapon was within reach on top of it. They’d not packed tents because Bull had decided to leave them back at the blowdown to lighten the load as much as possible.
The men sat close to the fire and passed the bourbon back and forth. As she’d predicted, it didn’t take long for them to start on elk hunting stories. Also as she’d predicted, Bull had the best ones.
Pederson appeared and sat down on her sleeping bag beside her.
“Why so quiet?” he asked.
“I don’t have any hunting stories,” she said. “And I’m bone tired.”
“Riding all day will do that to you,” he said. “Plus, I’d guess you have a lot on your mind.”
“Knowing Rhodine and Tibbs are on the other side of the mountain doesn’t give me a good feeling. And I keep thinking about Kyle. I can’t even imagine what that poor kid is going through.”
Pederson shook his head in agreement.
“Tonight is the first time I’ve not talked to my son Ben,” she said. “He has no idea where I am or why I’m not calling.”
“How old is he again?”
“Twelve.”
There was a long pause. Pederson said, “I know you probably don’t want to hear this, but a twelve-year-old boy is probably not pining for his mom as much as his mom is pining for him.”
“You’re right,” she said. “I didn’t want to hear that.”
Pederson reached over and gently rubbed her shoulder with his hand.
“Try to shut all that off and get some sleep,” he said. “We’re only going to be here a few hours. Bull wants to be back on the trail by four-thirty at the latest. The idea is to find those old cabins and get into position before it gets light.”
She liked the way he touched her and she wished he wouldn’t have taken his hand away. Then she thought of Ian and there was a sharp pang of guilt. It got worse when she realized she hadn’t thought of Ian in days.
* * *
CASSIE SLID INTO HER SLEEPING bag fully clothed. The stars were white and hard through the tree limbs and they seemed to penetrate her closed eyelids. The men were still telling hunting stories, but since the bottle was gone she guessed they wouldn’t last much longer.
She couldn’t remember the last time she’d gone to sleep without a shower. Her skin felt gritty and her hair greasy. She could smell her own breath inside the bag.
She thought of Ben, of Kyle, of Pergram. She made herself think of Ian but it didn’t seem sincere and she wondered if she was a cold woman like some of her colleagues had whispered.
* * *
THEN SHE HEARD IT.
A distant, thundering BOOM.
She sat up without unzipping her bag.
“What in the hell was that?” Bull asked from somewhere on the other side of the dying fire.
“I heard it,” Pompy said.
“Bigger than a gunshot,” Thomsen added. “Much bigger.”
They all were quiet, waiting for what came next. But the only sound was the echo of the singular explosion that moved through the timber like rolling thunder.
“Maybe we ought to get going sooner than we planned,” Pederson said. “Like now.”
CHAPTER
TWENTY-EIGHT
RONALD PERGRAM’S EYES SHOT open at the sound of the explosion. He threw off his quilts and swung his feet out to the floor.
“What was that?” Amanda asked from the dark in the other room. “Ron, what was that sound? Ron, I thought I heard a—”
“Hush,” he whispered harshly.
He heard her make a squeaking sound. That’s what she did when she forced herself to pinch off a torrent of babble. The woman talked like she didn’t even know she was talking. She talked the way men breathed: unconsciously. He’d punished her for it with a vibration warning half a dozen times and several times with a shock. It had helped somewhat, except now when he told her to shut up she ended it with a squeak.
Kyle, bless him, knew to be quiet. If anything, Ron wished that boy would say more.
His knees ached and his back popped as he stood up. He pulled on socks, a pair of jeans, an undershirt, and a sweatshirt. He listened for another explosion to come but it didn’t.
Amanda remained quiet although he knew it must be killing her.
Ron pulled on his trucker boots and clomped out of his small bedroom to the main room. Kyle was up, all right, and already dressed. He was riffling through the coats hanging on pegs near the door for the parka Ron had given him.
“Where do you think you’re going, Kyle?”
The boy stopped and slowly turned around.
“You stay here.”
Kyle looked down at his feet. He was obviously disappointed.
Ron watched the boy slink back to his single bed and sit down heavily on it. He felt something tug in his chest, something he had rarely experienced in his life: pride in the act of someone other than himself. That Kyle would wrongly assume he was going along to check out the explosion with him filled Ron with unexpected pride.
“Can I ask what we just heard?” Amanda asked in a low tone. She was so meek, Ron thought.
“You heard a shitload of C-4 being detonated,” Ron said as he reached for his coat and watch cap from the pegs. “I’m going to find out what set it off. Could be an elk or a bear, I guess. Or it could have been someone coming up here to find us.”
“Oh my,” Amanda said.
“I doubt there’s much of them left, whatever it was,” Ron said while he seated a round into the chamber of his .380 and jammed the pistol into the back of his waistband.
Without another word he returned to his bedroom and located a headlamp in his “Oh Shit” box to take along. He paused in the main room and looked at Kyle. The boy refused to look back. Obviously, he’d hurt the kid’s feelings.
Ron had no idea how to address it.
So he ignored Kyle and closed the outside door behind him. Then he snapped the padlock closed through the rungs.
It was cold but still. He guessed it was a degree or two above freezing.
He opened the door of the pickup and slid a shotgun out from beneath the front seat. It was a used 20-gauge Mossberg pump he’d bought at a pawn shop in Livingston. It was a dime-a-dozen kind of shotgun but he’d removed the plug from it so it could hold six double-aught shells instead of the three birdshot shells it was used to.
As he stepped back from the door he glanced up to see Kyle’s face in the window over the sink. The boy wanted to see what he was doing out there.
Ron waved to Kyle in the light from the dome light.
Kyle waved back and Ron smiled to himself.
He shut the door and the night was black again. He fitted the headlamp over his watch cap and found the dimmest setting.
Then he followed the bouncing pale orb of light down the old two-track to where he’d heard the explosion.