Antler Dust (The Allison Coil Mystery Series Book 1) (7 page)

“Sleep okay?” said Ellenberg.

“After that great serenade,” said Applegate, “of course. Thanks for the loaned tent.”

“Not a problem. Thanks for your help, by the way,” Ellenberg said.

“My pleasure.”

“I hear the interviews went okay.”

“The reporters all ask the same five or six questions,” said Applegate with a smile. “I thought one of ’em from
The New York Times
was gonna write my life story though.”

“Didn’t I see you being tortured by that slick-haired guy from Channel 9?”

“A strange breed, that one. He figured I was set up by you guys to look like a hunter.”

She had urged the reporters to all visit the sing-a-long, to show the group’s strong common beliefs and sense of community.

“Did you convince him?”

“I remembered I had a picture of myself with a big old elk that I killed several years back. Nearly trophy class. The picture was sufficiently faded. Now even Time has it, Time magazine.”

“Fantastic,” said Ellenberg. “Are you dealing with this okay?”

“I’ve never felt better,” said Applegate. “I feel, I don’t know, cleansed. Purified.”

Applegate took a deep breath. Whether it was from plowing through the snow or from thinking things over, Ellenberg couldn’t tell.

“My decision seems so small if it means prompting someone else to think about animals in a different way.”

The day had dawned clear and strong. It revealed a valley frozen in white, from cornices on the wind-whipped ridges to the west, to the rounder hills off to the east. The scene was defined by what was not white: the south-facing trunks of trees, the occasional boulder large enough to avoid a complete cover of snow and wisps of grass or bush that poked through the surface. A giant, invisible razor had given the scene its final grooming touches, turning the snow blanket smooth and clean-shaven.

The bloodhound led them up through a stretch of valley where the walls closed in and the woods grew dense. The entire troop— twenty cops, friends and fellow protesters—came to a complete stop as the dog poked around. A TV helicopter buzzed overhead for an aerial shot.

Applegate realized he was breathing harder than normal. Through binoculars Ellenberg could see the bloodhound working a series of concentric circles from the point where he had first pulled up. The handler and Slater stood rock still. It was remarkable that the dog could smell anything in the cold.

The bloodhound suddenly plunged off into a thick stand of trees, stopped suddenly and started pawing at the surface. His handler smiled.

“I hope Ray Stern felt release,” said Ellenberg. “A moment or two.”

Applegate buried his face in one mitten-covered hand and put the other on her shoulder.

****

Grumley was anxious to get a grip on his entire operation. He wanted time alone in his office, a small square of space in the center of the barn, between the shop and the saddle room. The office was big enough for a couple of old desks, a sagging red couch, a telephone, a space heater and a stocked rifle rack that circled the room on three sides. The rack was now home for Applegate’s Sako, a beautiful weapon much too nice for the likes of such a pathetic “hunter.”

He didn’t really need Popeye Boyles nipping at his heels, but the guy might sulk if you didn’t scratch him behind the ears.

“You look refreshed.” It was Boyles, toting a shovel coated with muck.

“Nothing like home cooking,” said Grumley.

“And being the old sailor I am, I know you don’t mean food.” Grumley grimaced.

“What’s up with the search?”

“They’re up there now, bashing around,” said Boyles.

“They?”

“A bloodhound from Grand Junction, a bunch of cops and rangers, a pack of them protesters and the dead guy’s brother.”

“Dead guy?”

Boyles stopped for a second and cocked his head to the radio strapped to his waist. Grumley could hear a soft voice but could not make out the words.

“Just someone sending out for donuts,” said Boyles. He stood there as if he hadn’t been asked a question.

“Dead guy?” Grumley repeated.

“Pretty sure dead. A bloodhound can track the trail of a filet mignon hanging out the window of a car door three days later, as long as you have a piece of the original steak. He’ll find it.”

“Where’s the sheriff on all this?”

“Sandstrom on a hike? In the snow? Uphill? Please.”

“Well?”

“He’s monitoring things from base camp over at Weaver’s place. What’s gonna be interesting is if they wind up where that one guide said she saw somethin’.”

“One more time, Popeye.”

“One of the guides over at Weaver’s place said she saw some strange goings-on up near Lizard’s Tongue.”

For a split second the announcement didn’t seem connected to Grumley’s world. How could anybody have seen anything?

“Strange what?”

“She’s tellin’ the cops about hearing a shot and seeing somebody. Most of it was garbled, you know, fuzzy. But she got herself a few minutes with Sandstrom.”

Grumley tried to think of the questions that a normally curious guy would ask. The key was to settle on a point between overly interested and not nosy enough.

“Name?”

“Allison something.”

Grumley remembered her, a city girl with a lot of want-to, trust-me in her eyes. She’d come around, at one point, looking for a job. “Allison Coil?” He remembered her. She was stunning in her own small-boned way. Cute and very green.

“That’s it.”

“Why does she think it’s anything?”

“Have to ask her. Oh, something about a dead elk, too.”

Grumley suddenly realized how everything could unravel.
Heard
a shot. Saw something. She might make enough fuss that they’d go look. There was no chance of finding the body until spring even if someone gave enough of a shit to keep complaining that Rocky Carnivitas was missing from the face of the earth. Even then all the cops would have would be a dead guy and a bullet, right? Hunting accident. Applegate was the complicating factor.

Boyles shuffled off, turning up the volume on his police radio.

For two hours Grumley made routine calls while the working part of his brain sorted through various scenarios of cop investigations. Two clients were due next week, one for a bull elk, the other for a trophy-class mountain goat. Both were repeat clients, a Hollywood B-movie producer and a San Francisco banker. The banker didn’t want things to be “too easy” this time. There should be two crews getting both animals ready. They would have to tranquilize the bull and tie it down one or two days before the scheduled hunt date. Rocky’s bull would have worked fine, but that was water under the bridge. The mountain goat could be moved after he was sedated.

Next, he made a call down to the store. Sales were good, not spectacular. They had run out of camouflage vests because of a screw-up with the distributor, but there was no shortage of ladies’ swimwear.

The schedule showed two two-man crews out servicing camps. One camp was due to break the day after tomorrow. Both were five-man groups, one supplied with a cook and one without.

According to the chalkboard, two other guides were following back a messenger from a third camp who had come for help quartering and packing out a kill. Boyles was scheduled for barn clean up. A guy named Gilliam was on “Trudy Duty,” the thankless job of watching Grumley’s wife to prevent any unattended seizures.

Grumley drove back down the valley. Six miles downhill, he turned back to the north and headed up the eight bumpy unplowed miles to a cabin where he kept horses and had built quarters for the crews that helped run and organize the custom hunts. The hunts were known among the crews as “George G’s Custom Carnage.” The cabin sat in a dark, craggy canyon that saw sun only a few hours each day in the summer. From early September to late April it was constantly in the shadows. The corral was less than ideal, on a steep slope and wooded, but what did horses know about level? Grumley had built a small shelter for the horses to use in storms and a small barn for saddles and repair.

Four horses worked on a small pile of hay scattered in the snow. Given how fresh the pile, someone had been there within the hour. No one was lolling around in a bunk, drinking coffee, or waiting for orders. There were a dozen men who worked on Grumley’s crew and they were all solid, like marble. And that made sense. They were well compensated. They earned enough in four months to last them a year, if they didn’t convert it all into Wild Turkey.

It was a profitable empire. No mistakes were going to destroy it. Grumley found a bit in the shed and led Trooper from the corral. He found a blanket and saddle and fitted them on. He tied a coil of rope to the saddle, raided the refrigerator for a wedge of cheese and four slices of ham. From the headquarters of George G’s Custom Carnage, as he liked to think of it, Lizard’s Tongue was only half the distance of the main trail up Ripplecreek. However, it was twice the grade in spots. He had to go back up to fix the problems caused by the meddlesome Allison Coil. Even if it wasn’t until next spring, he didn’t want anyone flipping over the elk to discover it was bulletless.

****

They didn’t yank Ray Stern from his white grave; they first dug out around him in a square double the size that would have been necessary to simply extract the body. The scene looked to Applegate like a slightly faster version of an archaeological dig in snow.

The body looked like a toy. The brown blanket had fused itself to the corpse. They unrolled enough to wave Ellenberg over for a peek. She approached the body cautiously, buried her face in her hands. She returned to where Applegate and the others stood. The television guys didn’t miss a moment.

“It’s a fake animal skin,” said Ellenberg. “A huge wrap. He made himself a target.”

“He didn’t want to waste his death,” said Applegate.

“It won’t be wasted,” said Ellenberg. “Believe me, it won’t be wasted.”

They carried the frozen lump of Ray Stern to the nearest clearing, up and over a small ridge no more than a hundred yards away. One of them carried Ray Stern’s frozen torso around the shoulders. Two others carried the legs. The brown blanket flopped along like a shroud.

Within a few minutes a mountain rescue helicopter hovered overhead and lowered a sled. The group watched as Stern’s body was winched slowly up, cameras rolling.

Applegate couldn’t watch. He knelt in the snow and bowed his head, knowing his life would never be the same.

****

The landscape was frighteningly white.

“Oh shit,” she muttered.

Allison looked at Slater. He understood. As they climbed the hillside on horseback, the snow depth increased with every hour. Bear was starting to wade slowly. Walking was hard work. The snow-covered landscape altered her bearings and the intense sun was disorienting. The remaining half-mile of slope up to Lizard’s Tongue was a vast, bumpy, lumpy snow farm. It was eight city-sized blocks of chunky terrain and she was looking for a dead elk lying on its side, the equivalent of a couple of flopped-over Harleys.

The helicopter drone, echoing up the canyon, had disturbed the peaceful walk for the last fifteen minutes. She turned to watch as it levitated from a position close to the treetops. The helicopter banked hard and flew off, leaving behind a wonderful silence.

And a weird sense of displacement.

This didn’t even look like the same slope, but here was Lizard’s Tongue and there was Black Squirrel Pass. They were on the right trail.

Bear worked along on his own internal radar headings. The snowfall had not thrown off his sense of direction. There was a slight indentation in the terrain that tracked the trail. Slater, who knew the intricacies of the Flat Tops like most people know their way to work, never questioned Bear’s judgment. It was helpful having Slater along. The cops were so consumed with the missing protester that the concerns she had registered were treated like an ordinary citizen complaint about a barking dog or partying neighbors. Slater had been told by his people to interview hunters in three specific backcountry camps. He was on his way to fulfill that assignment. They would split up at Lizard’s Tongue, if and when she could find the elk.

Finally she told Bear to stop. By her sense of mental triangulation, this spot was right.

“The cops have a bloodhound,” said Slater. “Maybe he’s done now and we could borrow him.”

“I wonder if he’d need the scent of any old elk to do his tricks or if it would have to be this particular bull?” said Allison.

“Probably have to be this one,” said Slater, “now that you mention it.”

The sun mixed with the cold air and snow to make the temperature manageable. If there was a ski lodge right in this spot, and if circumstances were different, they would both be sipping a Heineken, coats off, listening to overly loud rock and roll on the tinny outdoor speakers and letting their faces soak up the rays. Instead, they had to hunt for an animal that was already dead.

In her mind, Allison outlined a section of snow. It was half a football field long but not as wide. It was where they needed to start looking. She walked the perimeter of the area, pounding through hip-deep snow, constantly checking Lizard’s Tongue against her memory of it in the blizzard. This had to be about right. She was hoping for an antler poking through the surface of the snow, or maybe a major indentation where the snow had not accumulated quite so quickly because of the elk’s dissipating heat. The wind had erased the possibility of the latter, the depth of the snow the former.

Slater had two telescoping probes, the kind used to locate avalanche victims. They were aluminum with a pointed, pencil-like tip and T-shaped grip on top. They came folded up but snapped together easily. Stepping slowly side by side, three feet apart, they started plowing their field. The elk had not been directly at trail side, so they started closer to the middle, probing down with their rods every step, hoping she would sense a touch of something different than frozen tundra and something not quite as far down. All the while, Allison knew she should have marked the elk’s location, should have plunked down a flag of some sort that would have helped them now. The probing was tedious, the trudging difficult. At this pace, two hours might be enough.