Incident at Big Sky

by Johnny France

  Johnny squinted out the kitchen window at the distant snow of the mountains. “When the weather finally gets to ’em,” he’d answered. “When there’s no more game left up there and they need food.” He thought a moment, as if consulting some invisible calendar. “I imagine the end of January, sometime in there.”

  Johnny told them that he and the Forest Service had a regular capture plan worked out by which they’d marshal all their best people on the spot, as soon as the Nicholses came down and were sighted.

  “If they’re sighted,” Johnny had said somberly.

  Roland chopped the ice out of the stock tank, and watched the milling Herefords crowd in for their water. The herd looked in fine condition for this time of the year, their ocher coats thick and shaggy, their eyes and nostrils clear of mucus. He carefully examined the surrounding snow for blood signs that might mean hoof disease or barbed wire wounds. Finding no problems, he turned Toby gingerly around with a soft rein and left the steamy lowing of the cattle.

  Riding back along his inbound track, he let Toby find his own pace. So far the little blue had seemed just as sure-footed as could be, even on that rocky stretch near the last fenceline before the tank. Roland saw that this snowy climb was good for the horse and decided to ride him every day for a week or so, when he came up here to chop water. Such a regular schedule might do a lot to give the horse confidence.

  He was musing on the strange quirks of horse temperaments, and beginning to think about a hot cup of coffee and Elaine’s lunch, when Toby gave a shiver in his neck. Roland was immediately alert; something had caught the horse’s attention. Swinging in his saddle, Roland scanned the snowfield that sloped left to the ridge above. Then he saw the smoke from the side of his eye, below him to the right, about five hundred yards down the pasture, in the scrub timber at the edge of the draw.

  There was just that one puff. A billow of creamy gray that rose like an Indian signal in the still air. He reined Toby in and stared hard down the snowy slope to the edge of the draw. Somebody was on his land.

  Roland instinctively reined the horse right and set off at a steady walk, downslope, away from his track, to investigate the trespasser.

  Then his glove tightened on the reins and the little horse stopped.

  Maybe, Roland thought, I’d better not be too hasty here. He peeled back the earflaps of his wool cap and leaned forward in the saddle, gazing down the white void of the slope. No more smoke rose. There was no sound, other than the horse’s quiet breathing.

  Roland had survived several close calls as a smoke jumper, relying on his ability to quickly analyze a dangerous situation, then take the most prudent, effective course of action. Now he tried to analyze the problem before him and to act accordingly.

  Someone was definitely on his land; smoke came from fires, and fires did not just happen, not this time of year. Roland’s best course of action depended on who’d built that fire down there in the scrub timber at the edge of the draw.

  It could just be coyote hunters. But, even if it was, they had no right to hunt his land without permission. It could also be poachers, and that was nastier.

  Then again, it could be a cattle thief who’d come up here on a snow machine, shot a cow, and was butchering her down on the lip of the draw.

  In any of these cases, Roland would feel better if he had his scabbard rifle. He breathed deeply in the cold, dry air. There was the other possibility, of course. Johnny had said that the Nicholses might come out of the Beartrap across the highway bridge. And the Cold Springs Ranch was the closest piece of hill country to that bridge, a natural place for them to hole up, waiting for darkness before crossing the open rangeland to the west.

  Roland nodded toward the draw and wheeled Toby quietly back to the left. Before he did anything else, he planned to ride down to the highway and see if he could spot a parked car or pickup along the side of the road. If that smoke had come from some coyote hunter boiling water for coffee, there’d likely be an outfit pulled off the shoulder, right below the draw. Lots of people mistook that draw for public land; it wasn’t fenced, and you really couldn’t see it was private ranchland from down on the road.

  Roland began to feel a little better. Probably just coyote hunters.

  But, as he walked the horse through the soft snow toward the distant fenceline, Roland felt a sudden tingle of vulnerability. His back was fully exposed to the east, the direction from which the gray ball of smoke had risen.

  Once down on the main ranch road, Roland urged Toby into a steady trot. The road followed the valley of Cold Springs Creek between rolling dome-shaped hills of open range land. Off to the right, some pink rim rock outcropped, and the scrub timber was thicker on the steep slopes. That was where Johnny and the Shirley boys had set their trap lines when they were kids. The bounty on bobcat pelts was about the only hard cash those boys had seen growing up.

  Toby’s shoes clacked across an icy patch on the road, and Roland reined him in as they entered the flat near the highway bridge. There were no vehicles parked on the flat, or on either side of the road. He trotted the half mile down to the mouth of the draw. No car tracks cut the crusty slabs the snow plow had thrown up on the highway shoulder.

  Roland climbed down from the saddle and walked back along the roadside. He saw no human tracks in the snow, either on the roadside or leading up the draw. Holding Toby on a short rein, he stared up through the scrub timber that rose above him. Whoever it was up there had been on that ridge for at least two days, otherwise they’d have left tracks in the deep powder snow blanketing the draw and hillsides.

  Once more, Roland forced himself to be analytical, not impulsive. Someone was camping on his land, and whoever it was had not arrived here by car. If they’d hiked in from the south end of the ranch after the snow fell, he’d have cut their tracks up at the top of the Poison Pasture on his way to chop water. But the snow had been undisturbed up there.

  Again, Roland gazed at the dark timber. Coyote hunters and poachers drove cars and pickups. High school kids camping out wouldn’t have walked all the way from Ennis or Bozeman. Besides, the Christmas school vacation hadn’t started yet.

  Roland swung back into the saddle and prodded Toby into a fast canter, disregarding the danger of a fall on the icy roadside. It was time to call Johnny and let him know what was going on here.

  Roland placed his first call to the sheriff’s office in Virginia City at 11:25 that morning. He reached Mike Mitchell, the dispatcher, and asked to speak to Johnny France.

  “Sorry, sir,” Mike replied, “but the sheriff’s on his way over to Bozeman, delivering a prisoner. We expect him back soon. Can anybody else help you?”

  Roland carefully explained the details of what he had discovered. There was a campfire on his land, but there’d been no parked car or boot tracks on the roadside leading into the draw. He didn’t think it was school kids on a winter camping trip because school was still in session. It might be survivalists, but they usually played their games on weekends. It might be poachers, but they usually drove pickups.

  “Or,” Roland said evenly, “it might be the Nicholses. Have Johnny call me as soon as he gets back from Bozeman. I’ll drive up toward Red Bluff and see if I can spot any tracks or a parked outfit.”

  “Okay, sir,” Mike said calmly. “I’ll have the sheriff call as soon as he gets in.”

  Roland hung up the phone and stood brooding over the desk in his pine-paneled study. He was churning inside with conflicting emotions. On the one hand, he didn’t want to be an alarmist, setting into motion that whole capture-plan deal that Johnny had mentioned—just because a couple of high school kids had skipped the last days before Christmas vacation to go shooting coyotes.

  But, on the other hand, if that was the Nicholses’ campfire up there and they’d spotted him riding by on the ridge above the draw, they might be moving right now. By the time Johnny got back from Bozeman, it might be too late to catch them before dark.

  Roland turned abruptly and
stalked out of the room, his rubber boot treads heavy on the hardwood floor. He planned to drive down past Red Bluff and check the roadside closely, then use his binoculars to glass that draw from a safe vantage point across the river. If he got sight of anybody that looked even remotely like the Nicholses, he’d raise enough hell with the sheriff’s department that they’d call in the Marines, whether or not Johnny made it back from Bozeman in time.

  Roland drove his yellow Toyota pickup slowly along Route 84, carefully searching for tracks. By the time he’d passed Red Bluff, he had almost completed a 360-degree circle around the draw where he’d seen the smoke. As he suspected, there were no parked vehicles, no tire tracks in the deep snow, and no signs of anyone hiking in from the road.

  On the drive back to the highway bridge, Roland again searched the west side of the road. Nothing. Whoever was up in that draw had been there since Tuesday night when the blizzard hit.

  His pickup hummed under the gray steel girders of the bridge and crunched over the frozen crust at the entrance to the Trapper Springs store. Up in the driveway, he wheeled around to face the ridges across the river. The store had been closed for months; people said the owner’d gone bankrupt, trying to run a river raft and fishing concession on the wrong stretch of the river.

  Roland scanned the level snow of the drive. No tracks.

  He climbed down from the cab of the pickup and removed his gloves to focus his binoculars. Half a mile across the river, the snowy curve of his high pastures rose above the brushy draw. It took him a moment to pick out the upper righthand edge of the draw, the probable site of the campfire. When he raised his binoculars to scan the ridge, he merely intended to get the proper focus, not to begin a thorough search.

  But the first object he saw when he twirled the focus wheel of the eight-power glasses was a man. A man standing alone in the snow, about forty feet from a bushy, snow-laden limber pine. The man was tall, dressed in dark clothes and a brown sheepskin jacket. He wore a wide-brimmed hat. He was staring back at Roland.

  Roland stooped and steadied his elbows on the hood of the truck. When he tracked the glasses left, he saw another man, crouching at the edge of the trees.

  Roland licked his dry lips, suddenly aware of who he was watching through his glasses.

  The man in the open suddenly broke left and dashed for the cover of the pines, kicking showers of powder snow as he ran.

  A moment later both men had disappeared into the shadows of the low timber.

  Roland waited, his binoculars steady on the ridge. He saw trees and snow, no movement, no more smoke.

  When he stood up, he realized that he had only seen the two men for a few seconds. And now they had vanished, but he had seen enough. Those men up there were not high school kids or coyote hunters.

  He jumped into his truck and jammed the gear lever into first. The law had better get down here fast. It was after noon, and it would be good and dark up there in less than five hours.

  It was 12:26 when Roland Moore made his second call to the sheriff’s department in Virginia City.

  No, Mike replied, Johnny France had not gotten back yet from Bozeman. Somebody thought he might have stopped off to pick up some parts for a snow machine.

  “Well,” Roland said, trying to keep his voice even, “let me tell you exactly what I saw.…”

  He carefully explained the situation, speaking slowly so that Mitchell could copy his words on the dispatcher’s computer console.

  “Look,” Roland concluded, “you might want to blow the whistle a little harder because there are two men up on that hill, and they’ve been camping out in this weather for two days.” Again, he searched for the proper balance between concern and alarmism. “Whoever it is up there, they got no right to be on my land. Now I’ve got to go up to my stock tank again tomorrow to chop water, even if it’s Al Capone up there with his whole gang, so I want Johnny France or somebody in authority to come out here and check this situation out.”

  “I understand, Mr. Moore,” Mitchell said with exasperating calmness.

  “Is Gary Dedman, the undersheriff, there?” Roland asked, letting his frustration break through.

  “He’s at lunch, sir.”

  “Look,” Roland said, “if you can’t reach Dedman, get a hold of Merlin Ehlers. I want him to call me immediately, okay? We got a deal going on here that just can’t wait.”

  “Yes, sir,” Mike Mitchell replied. “I do understand, and I’ll get right on it.”

  Roland was too keyed up to sit at his desk. He paced his small study, a mug of coffee cupped close to his chest.

  He had seen them, both of them, not even a mile off the road, right up that first draw below the bridge. For five months the law had been busting its hump with SWAT teams and out-of-state trackers and helicopters … and God knows what, trying to find the Nicholses. And now they were hiding in the pines right here on the Cold Springs Ranch where Johnny France was raised, and no one seemed able to locate anybody in authority. It was damn frustrating.

  The phone rang.

  It was Merlin Ehlers. He listened carefully as Roland repeated the details.

  “Roland,” Ehlers said, “you just stand by there. We’ve contacted Bozeman, and they’re trying to trace Johnny. And I’m about to call Gary Lincoln, the FBI man in Butte. When things start happening, they’re probably going to start real fast.”

  Ten minutes later Gary Lincoln called from Butte. Once more, Roland patiently laid out the detailed sequence of the situation.

  “Mr. Lincoln,” Roland concluded, “I hate to have you guys come all the way out here with your dogs and SWAT teams just because I saw some smoke in a draw and a couple guys up on the ridge. It could just be school kids playing hookey, I suppose.”

  Gary Lincoln spoke with the steady tone of a veteran cop. “No,” he said, “this is the break we’ve been waiting for. I can feel it in my bones.”

  “Well,” Roland replied, “right now we’ve got a hundred percent snow cover, which is real unusual for this country. When the wind starts blowing tonight, you won’t have a good set of tracks to follow.”

  Lincoln considered Roland’s warning. “Is there someplace close by where we can set up a surveillance point? I doubt that we’ll be able to get our ducks lined up to go in after them today. It’s after one o’clock, and it’ll be dark in a few hours. We’ll probably go in after them tomorrow when this snow stops.”

  “It’s not snowing here, Mr. Lincoln.”

  “Well it sure is in Butte, and I think the weather’s headed your way.”

  Roland thought about possible observation points. “The only surveillance spot I can picture is on the hill across the river, above the Trapper Springs store. But that doesn’t really give you a clear view of the top of that draw.”

  “Doesn’t sound too promising,” Lincoln conceded.

  Roland felt obliged to renew his warning. “If it doesn’t snow here tonight, and that wind starts up, they’ll have clear country to travel in. And, from what I hear, they can cover a lot of country overnight.”

  “That’s right,” Lincoln said. “Headquarters in Washington did a profile of the case. They say we’ll never catch them if they break out of those mountains and get mobile.”

  “How dangerous you reckon they are right now?” Roland stared at the double-barreled shotgun hanging above the kitchen door.

  “Are you armed?” Lincoln asked.

  “Sure,” Roland answered. Every rancher had weapons on his place, they were a tool, just like shovels and fence stretchers.

  “You meet Don Nichols in his home country up in the Beartrap, out in the open … probably nothing would happen.” Lincoln paused to consider the rest of his statement. “But you surprise him down here in the valley, just come up on him when he’s stealing supplies or something, he could get real dangerous.”

  “Well,” Roland said quietly, “I’m not leaving. This is my home. But if you think the man is much of a threat to my family, could you send some arme
d officers up here?”

  “Don’t worry about that,” Lincoln said, “we’ve got the operation already started.”

  “Good,” Roland muttered, not really convinced.

  “Say, Roland,” Gary Lincoln said, “don’t tell anybody about this. If a neighbor drives up for a visit, just keep it quiet. We’re getting this operation cranked up right now.”

  Roland replaced the receiver in the cradle and stared out through the steamy thermopane at the snow. Already the shadows of the cottonwoods were long across the frozen creekbed. If they didn’t get their operation moving soon, he knew, it would be too late.

  Don Nichols rolled up his gear and shouldered his backpack. Danny was already loaded, impatient to be traveling. But Don took his time. If you didn’t stow your equipment right, you’d lose time later on, messing around with your pack.

  Don stepped out from under the snowy overhang of the limber pine and wriggled beneath the straps, adjusting the weight on his back. The clouds were rolling in again from the west, but there was still a lot of clear sky. It was a cold, windless afternoon. Down in the towns, people would be talking about this cold, probably only five degrees or so at noon. But he and Danny didn’t go by any thermometer. On the slope above, the snow curved in an untouched blanket. No doubt about it, they were going to leave a good set of tracks.

  That was why Danny was so jumpy. And that guy down on the highway in the yellow truck had the boy worried, too. But Don had tried to reassure him. That man would just think they were coyote hunters. He was curious, that’s all. If he’d have been the law, the highway would be crawling with patrol cars by now.

  As they moved away from the camp, Don turned to make sure once again that the fire was dead. If those pine boughs they laid out for their bed caught fire, there would be a lot of smoke, and that might be a problem. But the fire was dead cold. As he turned back, he noted the small pile of squaw wood, still stacked beside the ashes on the rock shelf. This had been a fine little camp, good shelter from the wind and snow and cover from the highway. Too bad there was no live water in the draw.