by JT Sawyer
Readjusting his pack, he slung the rifle on his shoulder and trotted back along the trail, the leaves of the aspens seeming to exude silence at the horrors beneath their sylvan canopy.
Chapter 13
When the red fingers of dawn had come over the horizon that morning, Dana Miller emerged from her sleeping bag in the back of her Ford pickup. The sound of wood being split by an ax filled the chilled air at the army encampment.
After arriving at the remote site yesterday evening, she’d spent a few hours talking with Waline and Ulysses about where their men were located and the nature of their training exercise. She then explained that she was looking into a lone vehicle parked in the wilds not far from their site but was going to wait until the morning to investigate, when the muddy roads were more accessible. The vehicle was parked many miles from the area where Waline’s men would be located by now so neither party was overly concerned about the potential of their paths crossing, though Waline privately entertained the idea of his guys dishing out justice to a bunch of lawless miscreants—as long as it didn’t involve him getting entangled in a mountain of paperwork.
Waline seemed more than willing to help and she found herself easily laughing at his frequent jokes. He had a fatherly presence about him and she couldn’t help notice his flirtatious glances. She took things in stride, knowing nothing could come of it since they were all due to pull up stakes in a few days. Plus, she was somewhat flattered given that most of the lotion-scented men in Ketchum rarely looked her in the eye when she walked by.
As the day wore on, she got a call from a colleague at the forest service dispatch saying there was a Ford Bronco with an empty flatbed trailer parked at the end of a seldom-used road along with the obvious tracks of two dirt bikes. Nothing unusual, she had told herself at the time, given it was the start of fly-fishing season in the region. However, the nearest river was three miles away and the plates were registered to a Lloyd Nieman of Stanley, Idaho, a small town sixty miles north of Ketchum. She didn’t recognize the name and had told her secretary to see if anything turned up on the Game and Fish database back at the office. Not wanting to do the forty-three-mile return trip to Ketchum and knowing she might have to head further north tomorrow to investigate Nieman’s whereabouts, Dana accepted Waline’s offer to join them for a Dutch-oven dinner and to camp out afterwards. It had been a memorable night around the campfire, hearing Waline and Ulysses recount their many boisterous adventures in exotic locations. It was a far cry from the doldrums of townhall meetings and land-use forums in Ketchum.
Dana wriggled free of the tight confines of the mummy bag and sat up, using her shirt sleeve to wipe the condensation off the inside windows of the camper shell. She could see Ulysses shoving aspen logs into the woodstove while Waline was busy splitting timber outside the canvas cook shack with deft swings of his well-worn ax.
She hastily dressed, sliding her work pants over her long underwear bottoms, then donned several fleece pullovers along with her issued Game and Fish nylon jacket. Dana glanced at her reflection in the window, brushing her hair back then neatly tucking it under a tan baseball cap. She flung open the tailgate and rear window then sat on the edge of the bumper, lacing up her weathered boots. Finally, she adjusted her belt, repositioning the pistol, handcuffs, and radio before stepping onto the glistening ground which was cloaked in hoarfrost.
Waline was already walking over towards her with a steaming canteen cup of hot coffee. “Morning, miss—hope you got some sleep and didn’t wake up with a headache from having your ears jammed full of all the nonsense we were coughing up last night.”
Dana put her gloves on and took a hold of the hot cup while chuckling. “Not at all. That’s the most fun I’ve had in a long time. Now, if I could only convince our state office to hold its annual meeting like that, I could see myself staying in my job a long time.”
Waline stood with his hands on his hips, his eyes gleaming like a schoolboy’s. “So, this isn’t where you see yourself in ten years—writing tickets to city folk who don’t know which way north is.”
She took a sip of coffee, delighted at the smoky flavor, which reminded her of hunting trips with her dad and brothers. “I’ve always wanted to run my own outfitting service—just taking people on horsepacking trips into the mountains then setting up a camp and fishing all week.” She waved her hand at their surroundings. “Kind of like this setup you have here.”
“Yeah, this is a camp up here. It’s something I’ve been doing for a few years now and it keeps getting more refined each time.”
“Oh, I thought this was Ulysses’ doing.”
Waline frowned, turning around as if checking on the location of his friend. “Well, sorta, he puts the camp together, cooks for us and such, ya know.” He interlaced his hands behind his head while arching his back towards the sky. “Ulysses handles the logistics, but the actual hands-on training with the skills falls upon me.”
She took another sip then set the cup down on her tailgate. “I see—and you guys are pulling out of here in two days, eh.”
Waline rubbed the back of his neck. “The guys are, yep, but I usually stick around for a while in town and, uhm, make notes on how we can do things better next year—though I was just talking about runnin’ two of these courses a year after this.” He held back a grin while looking at Dana, then averted his eyes to the treetops.
He turned and nodded for her to follow. “There’s some good vittles on the breakfast menu today—come join us.”
She grabbed her cup and followed alongside him. Nearing the kitchen tent, Dana saw Ulysses poke his head between the canvas flaps. He stepped out, wiping a greasy hand along his stained apron. “Good morning, young lady. You’re just in time for a homemade omelet.”
She walked inside and felt a wall of heat embrace her, coupled with the aroma of grilled food that had all been prepared in a cast iron skillet. A flood of childhood memories rushed over her and she felt unable to move for a moment. She stepped further inside, inhaling deeply as if every cell in her body was seeking nourishment.
“So what’s on your agenda for today?” said Ulysses.
“Waiting to hear on this vehicle that was called in not far from here to see if I need to go pay someone a visit.”
“You head out in these parts all alone like this?” said Waline in between forkfuls of eggs.
“Most game wardens do in this country. There’s just one of me to cover the entire south-central part of the state.”
“What’s the problem with whoever is parked out in the woods?” said Ulysses.
“Nothing except it’s a seldom-used area and there were dirt bikes that were unloaded off their trailer. It’s not like there are any good fishing holes in the region and that’s some gnarly terrain to be doing motocross in—could be just some folks having fun or…” She paused as she stirred the fork around her plate. “Or could be black bear poachers. This is the time of year when we sometimes have problems with that in Idaho and the western states. It’s right after the bears have emerged from their dens and are on the move in search of food or out with their cubs. And that region the vehicle’s in is extremely well-populated with ursids.”
“Poaching bears—for what?” said Waline. “Their hides or heads?”
“Gallbladders, probably,” said Ulysses, earning an irritated glance from Waline.
“Exactly,” said Dana. “The gallbladder fetches quite a sum on the black market in Asia. Sometimes upwards of fifteen thousand dollars, though most only bring in about a third of that.” She’d held off discussing this last night after she arrived as there was little that could be done with the dwindling daylight, plus she wanted to gather her thoughts on how she’d pursue the matter if this was a poaching case. Dana knew she didn’t have the luxury of a large department of fellow officers to draw upon and anything she undertook would be a solo operation and not something to walk into lightly.
“I saw something about it on TV a few years ago,” said Ulysses. “But
I didn’t think there was actually a viable market for that.”
“It’s only valued in traditional Chinese medicine. The gallbladder holds bile, which in turn holds ursodeoxycholic acid. Ounce-for-ounce, that bile is worth more than gold and it’s used for treating Hepatitis C and liver sclerosis.” Dana paused as she imbibed some of her coffee. “Once poachers get the gallbladders they ship them frozen back to Hong Kong or other Asian cities where the bile is then extracted and crystallized into granules. At that point, it kinda resembles brown sugar and is sold at traditional apothecaries for about fifty-five dollars a gram.”
“Does it actually work or is this just some voodoo pedaled by the old-timers in China?” said Waline.
“Its use goes back a few thousand years and if your grandma is dying and you believe a bear’s gallbladder could save her, no amount of conservation laws are going to put a halt to the poacher’s efforts. Just last year, there were fifteen hundred gallbladders on a flight from Calgary to Hong Kong that were confiscated, so this is big business.”
Waline kept shaking his head. “Gallbladders from a bear—now that’s a new one on me.”
“Here we are over in Afghanistan busting up opium operations and there’s this little black market ring going on right under our noses on federal lands,” said Ulysses.
“Maybe our next trip out here for training should be to assist in anti-poaching efforts,” said Waline, pointing with his finger between his eyes. “My boys wouldn’t have a hard time driving tacks between the headlights of those bastards.”
Dana finished her last forkful and nodded her head, trying to keep the law-abiding state official on the exterior from revealing that she silently applauded Waline’s philosophy.
The sound of static flowing over the radio in the adjacent tent caused Waline to excuse himself. “Time for my fellas to check in. You should stay a while. I’ll be back shortly.”
While Ulysses went about cleaning up after breakfast, Dana stepped outside the tent and returned to her vehicle. She started up the rig and flipped up the vehicle laptop mounted to the center console, then accessed the Idaho Criminal Justice Database. She would be able to pull up anything connected with Nieman that had been added to his file since she sent in the request to her colleagues in Boise the previous afternoon.
His rap sheet wasn’t significant but it did indicate that he had been charged with a misdemeanor fine for electro-shocking fish in a lake north of Ketchum six years ago. She scanned the color photograph at the top left, which showed a fifty-something man with salt-and-pepper scruff on his knobby chin, along with a jagged depression on his left cheek. She scrolled down the page and examined the notes typed in red, which revealed that Nieman was a person of interest with Interpol and possibly connected to the illegal pet trade out of Hong Kong. Dana leaned back in her seat, her finger tapping on the side of the laptop as she mulled over the information along with the other recent alert from Interpol.
It can’t be a coincidence that Nieman’s vehicle is spotted in prime black bear habitat the same week that I get a notice about Tung Lau arriving in Idaho. If those guys are out there killing bears, they’ll only be around for a day or two before moving on to another region. She sat up in her seat and retrieved the software for the topographic maps of the Sawtooth Mountains. Punching in the coordinates where Nieman’s vehicle was located, she studied the terrain features while her finger traced an invisible route along the numerous valleys dotting the map. If I were going to hunt some bears, I’d hit this habitat-rich corridor here and then circle back around to the north for any mommas with their cubs.
When she was done, Dana removed the folded Interpol bulletin from her coat pocket and glanced at Tung Lau’s face. Nabbing these bottom-feeders would put a dent in the poaching ring out west here. She raised her eyebrows at her next thought. Hell, a bust this big could even mean getting to put in for my choice of assignments with the Fish and Wildlife Service somewhere outside of Idaho.
She watched Waline exit the nearby radio tent, his bold stride causing her to lean forward in her seat. For a fleeting second, she thought maybe she should attend one of the training conferences in Washington state sometime. She smiled, flipping down the laptop then hopping out of her vehicle.
Chapter 14
Nieman was hiding in a thicket sixty yards from where Tung was secured to the tree. Upon hearing a skirmish on his approach route, he had crept to the ridge above and seen a man clad in military fatigues subduing Tung. Getting the tall stranger lined up in his scope, he realized it was someone in the army, which caused him to hesitate. Fortunately, the man left a few minutes later and Nieman proceeded to quietly move down the slippery hillside towards Tung. He noted the concentration of black bear tracks in the disturbed soil and knew there had to be a bruin nearby.
He paused in some knee-high shrubs thirty feet from his partner. The man looked pretty banged up, with a fresh bruise forming on his forehead and a trickle of blood near the corner of his mouth. His hands appeared to be firmly bound behind him with a thick lashing of nylon rope. Nieman searched the trail in the other direction for any signs of the soldier before creeping into the opening in the trail.
He heard Tung groaning as he approached. “Did you see which way that bastard went?”
Nieman silently nodded, pointing with the barrel of his rifle to the left while he squatted a few feet away.
“Cut me loose and we’ll go track his ass down. Nobody screws with me like that and lives.”
“Looked like he was military to me. You go messing with those guys and you’ll be bringing down a whole platoon on us.”
Tung’s face grew red. “So, you saw him—saw us fighting and didn’t do anything to help.”
“I got to the ridge just as he was leaving—after you had your ass handed to you. The mighty Tung Lau ensnared like some poor rabbit.” Nieman laughed as he scanned the area for any movement.
“You could’ve sniped him and ended this. Now he’s gonna radio out and have his buddies crawling around this area within hours. You’re as dumb as these bears out here.”
Nieman rolled his tongue along the inside of his indented cheek, his eyes studying the hillside then flicking back down to the fresh bear tracks on the ground. He thought he had heard the bellow of a beast coming from the other side of the hill.
“Cut me the hell loose already,” Tung said as he frantically struggled against his bonds.
“Shut up—I’m thinking,” Nieman said in a deep voice, surprising himself with his confident tone.
“What did you say to me, you fucking pineapple face? You forget who’s payin’ for your lifestyle?”
“No, I’ve never forgotten. That’s always been the problem, knowing you’re a greedy ATM machine. Every year, you’ve been cutting me out of what’s mine, thinking you have something up on me. Now, you want to kill operations here and move up to Canada, probably selling my ass out to the feds for a price along the way.”
Tung kicked his boot forward. “Piss off—you’d still be trapping monkeys in Vietnam for the pet trade if it weren’t for me. Now, cut me loose. We need to get rid of that soldier and then get out of here. We’ll let things cool off for a few weeks then hit another state.”
Nieman took a deep breath then rubbed the back of his neck, his ears pricking up at the sound of the approaching snorts of the bear in the distance. He inched closer to Tung then lowered his rifle and pack. Nieman removed his sheath knife then jabbed it into a tin of sardines he’d pulled from his pack. He stood up and started pouring the viscous fluid over Tung then emptied the contents on the man’s lap.
“What are you doing—have you gone insane?” Tung said, thrashing wildly and creating a rut in the ground as he tried to stand up.
Nieman removed another tin and began sprinkling the odiferous fish parts along the trail leading towards the huffing sound.
“Time for you and me to part ways. This is going to take care of a lot of my problems, old boy—especially the one about me looking
over my shoulder, wondering if you’re gonna put a round in my head someday.” Nieman smiled as he tossed the empty container on the ground. “And the best part is telling your uncle how you valiantly died in the line of duty, fulfilling your family obligations to him. He’ll eat up all that Confucionist bullshit. Then I’ll offer up my services as his new guy in the U.S.”
The bear could be heard rumbling through the trees two hundred yards distant. Nieman kept his rifle at a low-ready as he backpedaled towards Tung, who was shouting, his eyes wild and foam frothing from his lips as he tried to escape his restraints.
“All this noise might cause your four-legged friend to hesitate longer than I need him to, so shut up.” Nieman raised the butt of his rifle, striking his partner in the side of the head. Tung slumped forward, a greasy ribbon of sardine oil coalescing with the red stream of blood emanating from his right ear.
“Shit, this is the perfect crime. The forensics guys will have a friggin’ mess on their hands for days, giving me plenty of time to leave the country.” Nieman chuckled, then quickly retreated back up the ridge, his heart racing as much from the exertion as from the thrill of his accomplishment while the hulking bear sauntered towards the unconscious figure tethered below.
Chapter 15
After Mitch returned to camp, he radioed Waline, describing his bizarre encounter with the poacher. He could hear the sergeant major talking to a woman in the background, who identified herself as an Idaho game warden. He recounted the details of the culprit and the GPS coordinates of the spring. Marco sat wide-eyed by the fire, his expression partly in response to the chilling story unfurling before him and the rest due to the sting of the woodsmoke from his poorly managed campfire.
