by Jeff Carson
Wolf watched her for a few moments, and waved when she turned to look up at them through her dark sunglasses. She gave a quick wave back and continued toward the campsite.
Wolf watched the men stand at attention, greet her, and begin showing her what they’d found.
He reached the meadow at the bottom of the slope a few seconds behind McCall and followed him to the camp.
Wolf watched she and McCall shake hands as he approached. His earlier assessment was correct. She had a slender and athletic body, but what he couldn’t see from such a distance earlier was that she was as good looking as she was.
She approached Wolf with an outstretched hand. “Sheriff Wolf?”
Her hand was slender and warm with a strong grip.
She pulled up her sunglasses, revealing cinnamon eyes that were slightly upturned. She blinked, and her long lashes brushed the top of her cheeks, reminding Wolf of the plumage of a tropical bird.
“Yes,” he said.
“I’m Special Agent Kristen Luke, Glenwood Springs field office.” She turned back to McCall. “You were the one who called this morning?”
“Yes, that was me,” McCall said.
Special Agent Luke took center stage, and all eight of the men’s eyes surrounding her were glued.
“Did you two find anything up there?” She looked at Wolf and nodded to the peak.
Wolf nodded to McCall.
“A single shell casing,” McCall said, “A .308 Winchester.”
She creased her eyebrows and studied the bag McCall held up. Her forehead skin crinkled with the smooth elasticity of a sixteen year old, but her demeanor was that of a much older woman with a lot of experience. She nodded, and then unzipped her jacket and wafted it open, revealing a tight black t-shirt that accentuated her small breasts.
The men fell quiet.
Wolf left them and walked to his tent. He bent down and yanked a rain fly stake and threw it on the ground, then moved to the next one.
“What are you doing?” Luke asked behind him.
Wolf wadded the rain fly in his hand and flipped it over the tent to the other side. “I’m packing up my stuff.”
She turned to Bishop and Greibel. “You guys good with that?”
They looked at each other and shrugged.
“I don’t think they came back and took a nap in our tents after they chased us down the mountain. They had a lot of work to do, and it looks like they got it done.” Wolf walked around and pulled the remaining stakes. “You’ll find blood, hair, and plenty of other fluids with DNA in them in the soil sample they took over there. And we’ll find blood in the soil Officer Allison picked up at the trailhead.”
Luke tilted her head and shrugged, then grabbed the rain fly off the ground and wrapped it in a ball.
The other three men got started on Jack’s tent, and before long they had the entire camp pulled down and packed in the two backpacks he and Jack had left.
A few minutes later, Bishop and Greibel were done packing their police bags with the numerous samples and camera equipment, and they were ready to go.
Wolf insisted on carrying his Kelty pack on his good shoulder, and let McCall take Jack’s North Face.
“Let me take that,” Luke said to Wolf ten minutes into the hike.
The Kelty pack teetered on Wolf’s one shoulder, and Wolf had to walk at an angle to keep it from slipping, which it still did every ten steps.
“This is stupid. You’re hurt. I’m strong. Give me the pack,” she said.
“I got it, thanks,” said Wolf.
A few steps later the pack lightened, and was pulled off his shoulder. He twisted to grab at it, but she’d already yanked it out of his reach.
Before he could protest, Luke had it on both of her shoulders and was jerking down the straps.
He watched her get situated under the heavy load and then smile up at him, revealing a perfect set of white teeth.
“Thanks,” he said.
“You’re welcome. You can take your daypack.” She nodded at the ground.
He picked it up, put the five-pound weight on his good shoulder, and began walking.
Thirty minutes later they had navigated the steep top, and were walking along the flat valley.
“So can you tell me more about this guy you saw on the trail?” Luke asked from a few steps behind Wolf.
“Yeah.” He said. “Like what?”
“Well, I heard about the tattoo, and I heard you said it was in the shape of the EOD badge—“
“I said it was the EOD badge,” Wolf said.
She walked quietly for a second. “And you have experience with Explosives Ordinance Disposal units enough to know that for sure?”
Wolf took a few more steps. “Yes.”
“Okay, so the tat was EOD. What about the guy? Like, how was he acting?”
“Weird,” Wolf said, “he was running from something. But when I asked if something was wrong, he completely ignored us. Like we weren’t there. He was spooked, and since I was with my son, it spooked me.” Wolf looked up the trail. McCall and the other two officers were well ahead and out of sight.
“Yeah? And?”
“So I pulled my gun, and stopped him.”
She whistled. “Really?”
“Yeah, well. Something was way off. And I was right, wasn’t I?”
They were in a dense patch of forest now and a woodpecker knocked wood somewhere nearby. A breeze followed them down the path, and brought a whiff of Luke to Wolf’s nostrils. She smelled good. Probably bargain shampoo for all he knew, but feminine, and intoxicating.
“Yeah, I guess you were,” she said. “So you let the guy go, saw his tattoo…and then you heard shots later?”
“Yeah. My son and I were setting up camp, right at sundown, and we heard two rifle shots.”
“You sure they were rifle shots? Not shotgun? Pistol?”
“Yeah. They were rifle shots. Supersonic rounds.”
Another silence from Luke.
“I guess a Ranger would know the difference,” she said.
“Or any hunter,” Wolf said.
“Okay, and the guy at the fire. Tell me about him.”
“He had a scout rifle. Steyr. With a top of the line night vision scope on top. It was a white phosphorous display. I hadn’t ever seen one before. The whole getup seemed brand new, like money was no object. His gun was all military, but his outfit was just plain-guy, dressed in black to blend in. He had Cabellas boots on, and Carhartt pants, and a Carhartt jacket.”
“Okay,” She walked a few steps in silence. “So what do you think that means?”
“So, I’m just saying.” Wolf thought about the fight. The man had been sloppy. He’d landed a lucky punch, but other than that he’d been a strong guy who didn’t know how to leverage his strength against an opponent. “He wasn’t military.”
“And his appearance?” She asked.
“I think red hair,” Wolf said.
“Red?” She almost yelled the question.
Wolf turned and looked at her. She kept her eyes on the ground, like they were navigating a particularly tricky section of the trail.
“Yeah,” Wolf said, “or light blonde. He was pale skinned, and his facial hair blended in with it. And he had three moles under his mouth. I remember thinking he had food stuck there or something.”
She didn’t respond. Her questions had apparently run out, so Wolf concentrated on the hypnotic thump of his steps, thinking about a hot meal and a few hours of sleep in a soft bed.
For the next twenty minutes they walked without speaking, all the while descending the mountain, all the while Wolf catching the scent of Luke on the trailing breeze.
They finally reached the parking lot, and the three GSPD officers were waiting in a huddle. Their two vehicles were all packed up and running, and McCall walked to his hatch back and pulled it up.
Wolf walked straight to it and set his day-pack next to Jack’s, which was already inside lying next to a plastic
bin full of evidence bags and containers.
“How about I give you a ride,” said Luke. She nodded at McCall, “Do you mind?”
McCall shrugged and looked at Wolf.
“It’s just that I need to ask you a few more questions,” she said. “It’s important.”
“Okay,” he shrugged, “fine with me.”
Chapter 19
Wolf and McCall followed her to her jet black Chevy Tahoe with tinted windows.
She clicked a button in her pocket and the lights blinked, and then she swung up the rear door. With ease she lifted Wolf’s heavy pack off her shoulders and laid it gently in the back, took Jack’s pack from McCall and did the same, threw Wolf’s daypack inside, and shut the door. Her movements were elegant like a dancer, and showed her body to be flexible and strong.
“What?” She asked, and only then did Wolf realize they were staring dumbly at her every move.
They said goodbye to McCall, Bishop, and Greibel and climbed in the hulking SUV.
It must have been the latest model, because the dashboard had more glass than knobs, and it still had that new car smell inside. He brought the seatbelt across his chest and buckled it underneath his slung forearm—a move that was surprisingly painless.
He’d noticed he felt his wound less and less as he moved more and more, but he knew the real healing was starting, and the pain would come back. It would probably return by the end of the car ride, and by tomorrow morning, it would be a bitch.
“Jesus.” She said.
Wolf looked at her.
She was staring at his shoulder. “You’ve gotta clean and redress that thing.”
He looked down. There was a shiny pancake sized blood spot seeping through the black sleeve of his jacket. He looked inside, and saw the bandage was sopping. “Oh, yeah. You squeamish?”
She fired up the engine and the inside of the SUV exploded in a deep rumble of bass, and a deafening funky drum beat. With lightning speed she pressed the button on the radio, sending the cab back into silence.
Wolf twisted a finger in his ear and looked at her.
She blushed and backed up the SUV. “Not gonna bother me, if it doesn’t bother you.”
Wolf frowned. “What?”
She looked at him with a confused look. “Your arm.”
“Oh. Yeah.”
She drove cautiously down the road at a steady pace, and with a look of such intense concentration that Wolf opted not to speak for the thirty-five minutes it took to reach the highway. They headed north toward Rocky Points, through a wide treeless valley surrounded by towering white veined mountains on either side.
She stepped on the gas and got up to a quick seventy miles an hour, then swerved to the oncoming lane and passed a gas truck.
“So, what do you think?” Wolf finally asked. “Where we at on this?”
“What do you mean?”
Wolf watched her check her rearview mirror, and then fumble with the side mirror setting for a second.
“I mean we’ve just collected some evidence,” he said. “But how about the database? You think we can get somewhere with this tattooed guy? EOD? Tattoo on his neck? Can’t be too many men with that combination.”
“Yeah,” she looked at Wolf and raised her eyebrows. “Great minds.”
“What?”
She shook her head and pointed through the windshield. “Look, I’m really hungry. Do you want to stop and eat? We can talk there.”
“Yes,” he said, “god yes.”
…
They pulled into a low one-story log building with a wooden sign that said Merritt’s in yellow letters.
Wolf stepped out onto the gravel parking lot and into a stiff wind. It was late afternoon and though it was early June and the sky was free of clouds, the air had a cool bite.
He shut the door and waited as Luke got out and opened the rear door on her side, and then disappeared for a moment.
A few seconds later, she stood up, shut the door, and walked around the bumper with a manila folder in her hand.
A string of jingle bells clanked as they entered the almost empty restaurant. A waitress held up a finger in their direction as she finished pouring a glass of water for an old man wearing a flannel jacket.
“Go ahead and seat yourself. I’ll be right there,” she said.
The old man stared at Luke, and so did the cook from the kitchen window.
Then Wolf stared at Luke as she led the way to a corner booth and sat down.
Wolf slid in opposite and looked around.
On the walls hung horseshoes, and spurs, and old farming equipment hammered from iron, and black and white photos, and other western knickknacks that hung in ninety percent of other small restaurants in the mountains of Colorado.
The waitress came over, holding a couple of plastic cups with her fingers on the inside. She dropped them at the edge of the table and sloshed some ice water inside, then grabbed two menus from her apron and tossed them in the center of the table.
“Can I get you a drink?” She looked at Luke.
“Coke, please.”
“Coke,” Wolf said.
The waitress left without a response.
Luke’s eyes narrowed. “She seems happy,” she said in a low voice.
Wolf took his glass of water and drank the whole thing in one breath.
Luke looked at him with wide eyes and pushed her glass in front of him.
Wolf pushed it back. “No thanks. I’ll wait for her to come back around. You take it.”
She pushed it back. “No, please. Take it. Besides, I can’t stop thinking about what was on those fingers of hers, and apparently you have no problem with it,” she smiled with a slight roll of her eyes.
Wolf pulled the cup toward him. “What makes you think the Coke is going to be any cleaner?”
“You ever dropped a penny in Coke? I’ll take my chances.”
Wolf got two bacon cheeseburgers and fries, and finished them easily. His stomach had been completely empty, and he’d pushed himself to the limit the last twenty-four hours, which meant he was hungry. And when he was hungry, he could put down food like a competition eater.
Luke ate half a club sandwich and pushed the rest toward the edge of the table.
Wolf took her plate and finished what was on it in a few bites, then pushed it back to the edge.
Luke appraised him with an amused smile.
A few minutes later the waitress returned to take the plates away, and Wolf looked at the manila folder on the table.
“We gonna talk, or what?” Wolf asked, nodding at the folder.
She took a deep breath and sighed it out, then scooted the folder in front of Wolf and flipped it open.
Inside was a color photo of the tattooed man he’d seen on the trail.
Wolf pulled it closer and bent down. “What the…” He looked up at Luke.
“I take it that’s the man you saw on the trail?”
Wolf pushed the folder across the table and sat back. “What the hell? You…knew about the guy on the trail? That whole time? Before you even came to meet us?”
She held up a hand. “No. I didn’t know for sure, until just now. You just confirmed my suspicions.”
“Okay,” Wolf glared at her. “Well, speak up. Who is this guy? How did you know about him?”
She scooped the picture back into the folder and slid sideways out of the booth.
Wolf sat still as she picked up the check and walked to the cash register.
She paid, and then stopped at the door and looked to Wolf with raised eyebrows.
Wolf stood up reluctantly, stared at Luke and made his way to the door. “See ya Jennifer,” he said.
“Later David,” the waitress replied without looking up from her stack of receipts.
Luke squinted at their interaction, and then left out the door.
Chapter 20
Sergeant McCall drove in front of officers Bishop and Greibel in his SUV for thirty miles before he picked up his
cell phone.
“Hello?” Officer Greibel yelled into the phone. McCall could barely understand him over the classic rock blaring in the background.
“I’m going to stop and get gas, I’ll see you—“
“Just a second,” the shitty song finally quieted, “what was that, sir?”
“I’m stopping to get gas,” McCall kept his urge to scream into the phone at bay, “I’ll see you guys back at the station.”
“That’s all right, we’ll stop, too.”
“Nah, don’t worry about it. I gotta take a dump.”
“Ah,” Greibel paused like an idiot, and then laughed like an idiot. “Okay, I get it. We’ll see you back there.”
The Conoco station came up fast, and McCall stepped on the brakes and swerved off the road. For an instant, McCall watched in the rearview mirror as Bishop turned with him. Then he straightened and accelerated onward down the highway.
McCall exhaled, and then waved as they sped by. He pulled in and parked next to a gas pump, put in twenty bucks worth, and walked inside.
He nodded to the clerk behind the glass enclosure. Box of Rain, a Grateful Dead cut that was deep enough to suggest the clerks hippie-ness, vibrated out of the boom box on the counter. If that wasn’t enough proof that the kid was high on marijuana, then his dreadlocks, beads around his neck, and bloodshot eyes sealed the deal.
McCall stared at him for a beat and then walked along the coolers in back to the furthest aisle.
The volume of the music lowered to barely audible, and McCall smiled a little to himself. He reached the island where they sell hotdogs and pulled six napkins out of the dispenser. He held them in a wad in one hand, and rested his other hand on his holster near his gun. He walked to the next aisle over, taking his time with each step.
He eyed the corn nuts, the candy bars, the chips, never breaking his slow stride. Then he walked down the next aisle. And up the next. And down the next. And then he came to the first row of shelves he’d encountered when he’d walked in.
