Endangered (A Sam Westin Mystery Book 1)

by Pamela Beason

  “I thought not. He usually leaves that out of his wildlife lectures.” Anger knotted the muscles between Sam’s shoulder blades. “Buck the Bison,” she muttered.

  “What?”

  She’d actually said it aloud? “Uh,” she stuttered, embarrassed, “I like to match people with animals. Ferguson’s bullheaded, a big square guy, so I think of him as Buck the Bison.”

  Perez’s face remained solemn, but his eyes crinkled slightly at the corners.

  “Believe me, he’s a buffalo in temperament. You should have seen him in action yesterday, first at the park with a news crew and then later at the Appletree Café, just before you came in. He ran into Fred Fischer there.”

  “Sorry I missed that.”

  “It was curious. Ferguson smacked Fischer on the arm and told him to ‘Stay strong.’ ”

  Perez perked up. “Did you get the impression they knew each other?”

  “Maybe. Or Ferguson was just playing to the crowd as usual.”

  “Hmmm.” He whipped out his ever-present notepad and scribbled something.

  Across to the west, a line of blue-shirted backpackers zigzagging up a trail caught Sam’s eye. After he’d pocketed the notepad, Perez’s gaze fell on them as well.

  “Outward Bound,” Sam explained.

  “Ah.” Perez nodded. “Strange concept, reforming wayward youth by making them swim raging rivers and trek through jungles.”

  “Actually, they teach them to climb here. They’re off to the Curtain.”

  “The Curtain?”

  She smiled. “The Curtain is an unusual slot canyon—sort of a deep crevice in the mesa, formed by a creek that runs mostly underground. It has five chambers that descend down through the mountain.”

  Enthusiasm warmed her tone as she tried to describe the geological feature. The scenery defied words. “Millions of years of geology—limestone and sandstone and shale lit up by shafts of sunlight that filter down to gleaming pools and waterslides below. You have to rappel down from the top to get in. The colors and shapes of the rock walls are incredible, like a rainbow curtain rippling down. The Curtain is always done last on Outward Bound’s itinerary. It’s an experience that the kids’ll remember the rest of their lives.”

  “Sounds interesting.”

  “Interesting doesn’t begin to describe it. Kent—Ranger Bergstrom—and I explored it when I worked here.” She looked up the trail. “As a matter of fact, this trail eventually connects with the one that goes to the Curtain.”

  “So the Curtain is popular.”

  She shook her head. “The trail’s not on the maps, and most of the underground area’s off limits. Kent and I were probably the last people to go all the way through. The middle chamber’s been closed for nearly two years: the overhang’s crumbling.” Hmmm. Had anyone searched the Curtain yet? She’d call the ranger station tonight and ask, head up there tomorrow if they hadn’t already assigned it to someone else. Why was she still standing here chatting? She shifted her backpack. “Gotta go, Perez. See you.”

  She’d walked for only a minute or two before she heard his shout. “Westin!”

  Down the trail, Perez and a black-haired girl stood side by side just a few feet off the path. The girl repeatedly jabbed her finger in the direction of the ground. Perez gestured for Sam to return. She frowned in frustration but walked back.

  The patch of loose dirt that Perez indicated held two large depressions of rounded pads and toes.

  “A cougar, right?” The girl’s face was eager for approval.

  They were cougar tracks. Sam pointed. “This one is a right forepaw; this one a right hind paw print. This”—she indicated a gouge in the lichen covering a bordering rock—“is probably a left forepaw.”

  The teenager’s face shone. “I’ll look for more.”

  Perez jotted a note on his pad. “Can you tell if the cougar was carrying anything?”

  Sam rolled her eyes. “You’ve been watching too many Daniel Boone movies. This is an eighth of an inch of dust on top of solid rock—you’re lucky to get a print at all.”

  The agent removed a small camera from his pack, took several shots of the prints.

  “It doesn’t mean anything other than that a cougar has been in this area,” she told him. “These prints might have been here for weeks; there’s been no precipitation recently. And Zack’s shoe could easily have fallen down from the trail. The creature that brought it here is most likely human.”

  Perez gave her a dark look.

  “If there’s nothing more . . .” she said.

  There wasn’t. She picked up the pace, breathing hard now. Damnation. Now Perez would report the cougar tracks near the shoe site, adding to the kill-the-lions fury. She had to find Zack.

  The trail was steep, the altitude high. Why would someone carry Zachary up a trail into the backcountry? Only one reason made any sense: to hide him, dead or alive. She worked on her mental list of suspects.

  Fred Fischer. He said he knew the park, his whereabouts during the early hours of the search were unknown.

  Jenny Fischer? No. Remembering the scene at the campground when Jenny showed them the toy truck, Sam dismissed Zack’s mother from the suspect list. It was hard to believe any woman could fake pain that convincingly.

  A pedophile? Her mind immediately supplied Wilson. But even if the creep was a child molester, why would he bother to carry a child into the backcountry? The man might trot around in jogging suits, but he didn't look like he could climb a steep trail. Why not just stuff Zack into his camper and take off with him? And the rangers had already discounted him as a suspect.

  An unknown kidnapper, someone who wanted a child? But why take the child up to the plateau instead of just driving away? Maybe they’d seen the guards on the gate, as Perez had reminded her. The park was long and narrow, only eleven miles across at its narrowest point, an easy distance for a strong walker. She thought about Kent’s tales of homeless people in the park. Maybe a lonely hiker had taken advantage of finding an unsupervised toddler?

  Buck Ferguson? Nobody had been keeping tabs on him the night that Zack disappeared. Ferguson knew the park, too. And he also had a lot of loyal followers who would be willing to help him out. He’d certainly been poised to take advantage of the situation and accuse the cougars.

  She ascended the trail with renewed energy. Proving Buck Ferguson guilty of a crime would definitely make her day. But everything came back to the missing child. She had to find Zachary Fischer.

  Jade Pool was her lunch stop. Water trickled over the edge of the cliff above into the small pond below. The brilliant green moss that bordered the rocks around the pool gave the place its name. She allowed herself five minutes to wolf down a bagel smeared with peanut butter, a few swallows of tepid water. Then she moved on, looking for any sign of a small child.

  The cliffs that fell away from the trail were open, steep, and lacking in vegetation, for the most part—no chance of concealing a child there. But Sam was familiar with several clefts and crevices in the area. Unfortunately, they were well off the trail and time-consuming to search, but she made herself trek to every one. She found nothing more revealing than a cellophane bag that had once contained potato chips.

  10

  The lizard froze, its long slender toes tensely gripping the lichen-covered rock. Shiny black eyes swiveled back and forth in their sockets.

  Leopard spots on the reptile’s head spilled down to a pair of black tiger stripes that ringed its neck. White flecks dappled the smooth sea green scales that shimmered over its body and long tapered tail.

  Kent remained immobile, one foot in front of the other, positioned as he had been when he first spotted the animal. Crotaphytus collaris, collared lizard, commonly called a mountain boomer. They were spooky, usually flitting away before they could be identified.

  It was a miracle that he had seen one today. A helicopter had flown overhead no less than five times in as many hours. Every living creature in its right mind was hid
ing in crevices, cowering beneath overhangs. Kent felt his own urge to flee every time one of the mechanical monsters thundered past. He hoped the mountain lions were as invisible as the rest of the park’s fauna.

  The lizard pushed itself up on scaly forelegs, its front claws scratching against the rock. It raised a pointed snout into the breeze and bobbed its head at the sound of faint voices and footsteps. Hikers, still out of sight behind a tall fin of sandstone, were approaching on the trail.

  He took a step toward the reptile and flung his arms in the air. The startled lizard sprang from its basking rock to the ground, sprinted away on its hind legs. Running upright, its claws digging into the dirt, its tail streaked out behind as it disappeared down the path.

  A twelve-inch-long dinosaur. He couldn’t wait to tell Sam. She was the only one who would appreciate the significance of Crotaphytus collaris.

  The voices were closer now. Was that stink a cigar? Kent heaved a sigh, put on what he hoped was an authoritative expression, and trudged forward to greet the hikers.

  They met where the trail rounded the tallest hoodoo in the fin, the formation known as the Hawk. It was a spire of lumpy red rock topped with a hooked protrusion that, he supposed, with an overactive imagination or a good dose of LSD, could look like a raptor’s beak.

  The expression of surprise on the lead hiker’s face was quickly replaced by wary distrust as he took in Kent’s uniform and badge. In his hand, he held a silver flask, which he quickly capped and slid back into his hip pocket. His camouflage fatigues were so recently purchased that they still showed creases from packaging. As Kent neared, the man slid his rifle down to his side, moving it out of sight behind his leg.

  As if I wouldn’t notice, Kent thought sourly. The two men that followed were dressed in similar hunting garb and also carried rifles. Another flask peeked from the breast pocket of the third man’s vest. A pair of liver and white hounds gazed at him curiously. One woofed softly but fell silent when its owner jerked sharply on the leash. At the sight of the dogs, Kent’s anxiety level rose. The cougars stood a good chance of remaining invisible to two-legged killers, but a hound’s nose was a weapon they couldn’t beat.

  Kent folded his arms across his chest. “Howdy, boys. What kind of a hike are you on?”

  The leader pushed his black baseball cap back from his forehead, revealing steel gray eyes wrapped in heavy wrinkles. Kent blocked the trail, waiting. The man pulled the cigar from beneath his mustache and spat on the ground, narrowly missing the toe of Kent’s boot. Asshole.

  The leader explained, “We’re volunteers, here to find Zachary.”

  The two men standing behind him nodded vigorously. More assholes. The eyes of the hounds were glued to their owners’ faces, waiting for a cue.

  Kent focused on the leader. “We appreciate you helping us search.” He smiled for emphasis. “But what’s with the firearms?”

  Under the bill of the black cap, the leader’s gaze remained steely. “We got the right to carry,” he said.

  “True enough,” Kent said. Thank you, Congress. “But you don’t have the right to shoot weapons in the park.”

  “But the cougar hunt . . .” the last one in line began, then let his words trail off.

  “There is no cougar hunt.” Kent unfolded his arms, rested a hand on his service belt, wishing for once that the metal flashlight under his fingers was a pistol. “Anyone caught injuring wildlife here can be charged with a federal offense.”

  The two dog handlers exchanged looks of confusion. The leader pulled his cap down. “First we’ve heard of it,” he growled.

  “Now you know,” Kent said. “It’s also illegal to even carry a weapon if you’ve been drinking. If you leave the park immediately, return home and lock up those guns, I’ll let you go. Otherwise, I’ll have to write you a citation.”

  The three stared at him. Pushing aside the strap of his backpack, he unbuttoned the flap of his shirt pocket and reached for the citation pad inside. “It won’t be cheap,” he warned.

  “We’re on our way out,” the leader mumbled, already turning his back to Kent. The second in line incongruously murmured “Thanks” before the whole troop wheeled around and started down the trail.

  Kent trailed the three men for a half mile, making sure they were headed back toward the park’s north entrance. He called in the incident and asked for a ranger to meet the men at the trailhead and make sure they left the park. Then he turned off on the trail toward Navajo Leap. He still had six miles to cover and God knew how many jerks to lecture before reaching Mesa Camp. The last time he’d been on this route for backcountry patrol, he’d seen a spotted skunk, a white-breasted Swainson’s hawk, and a coachwhip chasing down a pocket mouse. While he realized that such biodiversity was probably too much to hope for on this trip, he hoped that at least the animals would outnumber the assholes.

  * * * * *

  By late afternoon Sam had gained the plateau, where the air, while still warm and heavy from the relentless sun, seemed somehow more breathable. A helicopter reverberated overhead. Looking up, she spotted a pair of legs and a rifle muzzle hanging from an open side door. Who was riding shotgun? And why? Had Thompson already lost what little spine he had left?

  She had to give SWF something to use on their website, some sort of defense against the television news, against websites like Sane World and its ilk. Did she dare write about Fischer’s record or Zack’s adoptive status? She couldn’t identify sources. But enough people had heard about the ransom note and the shoe on the trail for those to be called public knowledge. The phone and laptop had been biting into her back all day; it was time to head back to her camp and fire off the only ammunition she had: words.

  At the top of the rise where line-of-sight communications would be most clear, she turned on the radio and caught Kent reporting an encounter with hunters near the Hawk. The thought of her friend facing down three rifles while armed only with pepper spray made her nauseous. But he’d sounded upbeat when he said he was on his way to Mesa Camp for the night. The guy had balls.

  As she rounded a pile of boulders, she nearly collided with a tall figure walking in her direction. She stopped in her tracks, startled. “Hello.”

  The jerkiness of the man’s movements told her that he’d been startled, too. His hair, a dull reddish brown, was cut in ragged chunks, as if he’d trimmed it himself without benefit of a mirror. Compared to the tanned skin around his eyes, his cheeks were pale, as if he’d shaved off a heavy beard recently. His jean shorts drooped on his thin frame and his dirty tennis shoes had holes in the toes. Around his waist was tied a brown shirt. In his hand he held a cluster of half-eaten red grapes.

  As if deciding she was not an enemy, he beamed a smile at her. “Hi.” He thrust the fruit toward her. “Grapes?”

  The small red globes smelled heavenly. Did he mean her to take one or two, or the whole bunch?

  “Don’t worry, I have more.” He thrust them closer.

  “Thanks,” Sam said, taking the cluster from him. “You know you’re off the trail.”

  He gave her a quizzical look. “As are you.”

  Touché. Since he didn’t have a pack, she asked, “Just out for the day?”

  He winked. “For the rest of my life. How about you?”

  Pulling off a grape, she popped it into her mouth, unsure how to continue this strange conversation. She didn’t want to go on her way and run the risk of revealing her camp, which was only a short distance away. Feeling a prickle of unease, she wondered if he’d already discovered her tent and her cache of equipment. His blue-eyed gaze was serene, even friendly. If he had stumbled upon her camp, he’d clearly taken nothing. He was not even carrying a bottle of water.

  She slowly chewed another grape. Finally, to cover her awkwardness, she mumbled, “It’s a beautiful day for a hike.”

  “Indeed. A gift from the Creator.”

  Ah. She understood now. He was one of those religious types who chose to believe that nothing bad eve
r happened in the world without a good reason; that everything in life proceeded according to some mysterious plan. He wasn’t smoking pot or dropping acid; his drug of choice was God.

  But all was not right with the world. “Have you heard about the little boy lost down in the valley?” she asked.

  “He’s not lost.” The man took a step downhill.

  “Wait!” Sam put out her hand. “Why do you say he’s not lost?”

  He tilted his head a little, studying her as if she were an unusual bug. “None of us is lost. He’ll be taken care of. The Creator will provide for him.” Taking a step closer, he raised his hand and briefly stroked a knuckle down the length of the silver-blond braid that hung over Sam’s shoulder. “Your hair is the color of moonlight.”

  It was a little creepy, but Sam made herself stand still and wait to see what he’d do next.

  He turned and walked away.

  She called after his retreating form, “If you see Zack, could you tell a ranger?”

  He gave no sign that he heard. “Thanks for the grapes,” she yelled.

  She watched until he had disappeared from sight. Strange fellow, a little otherworldly. And his platitudes were annoying. Have faith. God will provide.

  There was only one religious saying that she liked: “God helps those who help themselves.” And it didn’t even come from the Bible. Not to mention, it was an easy way out for God. Was she the only person who noticed that the Supreme Being seemed to have zero responsibilities?

  But platitudes aside, it was kind of nice to meet someone so mellow in the midst of all this furor. She liked the idea of having hair the color of moonlight. And his grapes were crisp and delicious.

  Back in her private canyon, which thankfully showed no sign of intrusion, she fixed a quick dinner, mixing soup from an envelope into steaming water, then set up the computer and uplinked to the satellite. Under the headline “No Proof of Cougar Attack,” SWF ran the article she had written yesterday with few changes, accompanied by the photos of the missing poster and the bullet-ridden signboard.

  Sam ground her teeth. Not exactly the beautiful story of nature’s magic that she had envisioned. There was a second page, however, in which the SWF crew had inserted standard text about geologic features and climbing opportunities at Heritage National Monument, along with a grainy photo of teenagers rappelling down a cliff that came from the video clip she’d sent. She leaned closer. Why hadn’t they used a film sequence instead of making a frame into a still image?