Endangered (9781101559017)

by Beason, Pamela

  She rummaged through her vest pockets, came up with a stub of a candle and a book of waterproof matches, her emergency supplies for starting campfires. No way would the candle throw enough light to hike for three miles to her camp. Then, aha! Her fingers wrapped around her penlight. Tiny, but it had a fairly powerful beam. She switched it on, grateful for the small spark of light.

  Something whined above her head. She stopped, every tendon in her body tense. Uuummmmmeeeeeeee. She pointed the penlight upward. A shower of pale leaves spiraled down toward her. The plaintive screech of two limbs rubbing against each other. Was this what she had heard? Her mind played back the faint cry in the ruins: Mumm-meeeyyyyy! The whine of the wind mimicked the mournful sound: Uuummmmmeeeeeeee.

  Just the wind in the trees? She hadn’t heard a child’s cry? And maybe her pack had been rifled by a hiker, just passing by and in need of a radio and food. Right.

  But no matter who—Coyote Charlie or Fred Fischer or the bogey man at the end of the path—was skulking around up here, he wasn’t going to get away with scaring her off. She would check that last room. Detouring from the path through brush and boulders, she approached the far side of the ruins, where the plaza met the cliff. If someone was lying in wait for her, she wouldn’t accommodate him by taking the most predictable route.

  Her booted toes struck the first inch-high unseen step and she pitched forward in the dark. Her wrists took the brunt of the fall, but the shock radiated up to her sore neck muscles and down her aching back. She clenched her jaws to keep from yelping in pain. On impact, the penlight winked out, rolled away from her. She retrieved it, banged it against the palm of her hand. Nothing.

  Tears of frustration stung her eyes. She forced them away, swallowing hard, and zipped the now-useless metal cylinder into a pocket of her vest. She crawled up five more steps on her hands and knees, trying not to think of snakes and scorpions, before the surface flattened out and it was safe to stand.

  The rising breeze gusted flurries of fallen leaves through the ruins. Not much chance of detecting another person by sound alone. The susurration of the dry foliage would easily mask the shuffle of footsteps. Every few seconds she threw a hurried glance over her shoulder to make sure someone wasn’t sneaking up behind her.

  At the rim of a yawning hole in the plaza, she paused. She hadn’t inspected the kivas, either. The wind blew out the first match. Shielding the flame with her body, she struck a second, touching the match to the candle wick as soon as it flared up. The illumination provided by the small candle was minimal; only vague clay-colored shapes flickered below. A circular stone bench with a circular shadow beneath it. One little splash of red. Zack’s sneakers had been red. So had his pants. She stepped carefully down the short pole ladder into the ceremonial chamber, brought the flame nearer to the object she’d spotted. A wrapper from a stick of cinnamon gum. She turned to climb out.

  Something rustled behind her. Pivoting slowly, she held the candle out at arm’s length. At the base of the stone bench across the room, among a drift of fallen leaves and tumbleweeds, something was moving.

  “Zack?” She took a step closer. Mottled brown and black scales gleamed in the flickering light. A glassy eye regarded her with hostility. Snake? The creature suddenly lurched toward her.

  Stifling a curse, she stepped back, smashing her knapsack with a clunk into the ladder and sloshing a spatter of melted wax over her fingers. She winced in pain. Damned lizard.

  Filled with the dry autumn debris and then covered with a canopy of snow, the kivas would make good winter burrows for reptiles. It looked as though this one had decided to immerse itself in Native American archaeology for this year’s hibernation.

  Out of the kiva, she took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, staring into the darkness that surrounded her. A few weeks from now, this would seem like a bad dream. Maybe she’d write about this whole exhausting escapade later in a novel. Providing she survived.

  THE living room was empty, with only the corner lamp on. No TV tonight. His two older girls were spending the night at a friend’s house, Rafael Castillo remembered. Good, maybe he could finally get some sleep tonight, at least a few hours. And he didn’t care if he was still on call, he had to have a beer: his nerves were shot. If the Daniel Boones this morning hadn’t been falling-down drunk, if Leeson and Taylor hadn’t shown up when they did, he’d probably be in the hospital with Kent Bergstrom right now, if not in the morgue.

  According to the FBI agents, it looked like Fischer had sent the ransom note. What did that mean? Was he trying to cover up whatever he’d done to that poor little boy? And now he’d disappeared into the park, and might be skulking around the ruins where Sam Westin had found the wheel to a kid’s toy. And if it really was from Zachary Fischer’s toy, what did that mean—that the poor baby was up there somewhere? Alive? Not likely.

  The FBI Crime Scene team was doing God knows what up on the plateau; the feebs wouldn’t share that with lowly rangers. And to top it off, Thompson had the USDAWS hunters showing up tomorrow. The world had gone crazy. But there was nothing more he could do about any of it tonight. Maybe he’d have a shot of tequila along with a beer, then hit the sack.

  From the bathroom came a splash, a low voice, a giggle. Anita must be bathing their two little ones, Enrique and Katie. Some time with his sweet babies would be welcome right now. His hand was on the bathroom doorknob when he heard a deep voice say, “Now, Enrique, Katie, we’re going to play a secret game.”

  What in the—? The door snagged on the throw rug. He pulled the scrap of apricot shag flat with the toe of his shoe and shoved the door forward again.

  “Papi!” Katie and Rique faced each other, their dark curls wet from splashing in the tub. Russ Wilson sat on the floor, tiny shirts and underpants strewn around him, a towel over his lap. One hand was on Katie’s bare back; the other clutched the side of the tub. He turned a startled face toward Rafael.

  “Your wife is—” he started. “Miranda will be back any minute. She’s taking some pans down to—”

  “Watch, Papi.” Enrique pulled himself up on the tub side and held out a plastic measuring cup. He poured a cupful of water into the tub with a big splash.

  Did Wilson’s gaze stray to the boy’s privates for a fraction of a second? He tried to analyze the expression on the man’s face. Surprise, certainly. Had there been a certain slyness in Wilson’s eyes before he’d recognized the ranger at the door, a certain sick pleasure?

  Rafael put his hand on the butt of his pistol. “You’d better leave,” he said. “Now.”

  STICKING to the shadows, Sam groped her way toward the last unexplored room. At the doorway, she pulled the pepper spray out of her pocket. She stepped quickly into the room, holding the cylinder in front of her with both hands. The wind gusted through the doorway behind her, creating a whirlwind of leaves that spiraled around a dark heap in the center of the room. She willed her pupils to adjust quickly. Her head pounded with tension, accompanying the banging of her heart.

  She heard a hissing sound. An inhaled breath? Her skin prickled in anticipation. She waited to feel the grip of icy fingers around her throat, the barrel of a gun pressed against her temple. Another puff of wind blew in. Scratchy fabric suddenly raked across her left cheek. She gasped and stumbled back, collided with the wall, jerked her head sideways, raised a hand to fend off the attack. Her fingers rasped across serrated edges as she batted the object away.

  She dropped into a crouch, her back against the wall, her arms out in front of her for protection. Her body shook with the pounding of her pulse. The gust of wind faded away. Her lungs burned with the effort of holding her breath.

  She strained to hear the slightest whisper of noise and was finally rewarded by a puff of air propelling a few leaves across the dirt floor. She was alone. The wind had blown dried leaves against her neck, her shoulder. The breath she’d heard must have been her own. She brushed leaves from her shoulder, feeling again their serrated edges. With shaking fingers
, she pushed the pepper spray back into her vest pocket.

  Idiot. If someone were planning to kill her, he could have done it by now. She could have been easily trapped in any of the rooms. She’d lit the candle at the top of the kiva, spotlighting her location. She’d been noisy while she was shouting for Zack. If someone was observing her, he wasn’t in any hurry to do her in. Maybe the thief had been Coyote Charlie. Scotty McElroy told her that items were missing after Charlie had left. Was this was how he spent his time: spying on hikers, pilfering supplies?

  So Coyote Charlie was a thief. But was he a murderer? She’d always envisioned him as a blithe spirit, sort of like the fruit-toting hiker she’d met close to her camp yesterday afternoon.

  The oddball’s words replayed in her mind. He’d mentioned the Creator, just as Perez had when explaining his Starchaser name. Was that how Native Americans referred to God? The man had carried no backpack or water bottle, said he was “out for the rest of his life.”

  Had she been talking to Coyote Charlie?

  She compared her memory of the hiker to the vision of Coyote Charlie in the moonlight last night. Different clothes. But they’d shared the same slender build. She felt a little safer thinking of that hiker. He hadn’t seemed threatening or violent. He wasn’t slimy like Weird Wilson. Maybe a little woo-woo, as McElroy had said, but not psychotic.

  Had she imagined a little boy’s cries? She fingered the wheel in her pocket. That, at least, was real.

  “Zack?” she said loudly to the darkness. Then, “Charlie?” No response.

  She extracted the lump of candle from another pocket and lit it once more. In the flickering light, the dark pile at the center of the room resolved itself into a heap of dirt and small rocks. Gnarled roots dangled from a hole in the ceiling like an avant-garde chandelier. The break in the roof accounted for the green slime that covered the floor of the room. She knelt and inspected the damp patches of lichen.

  Several imprints were visible on the floor. Blurred outlines of toes as well as the marks of waffled soles, pointing in all directions. She walked around the pile of rubble. Patches of lichen had been scraped from the fallen rocks. One velvety lump of moss held an impression the shape of a big toe.

  Could she stand on the fallen rocks and pull herself up through the opening? Maybe. It would be a stretch. Not only that, it would probably be a dumb thing to do; the roof had already proved to be unstable. But this could very well be Charlie’s secret passage; he was tall enough and skinny enough to easily slip through the hole in the ceiling. Maybe she’d find a hidden staircase or tunnel that led to the mesa above. And, if Fred Fischer had used the ruins, too, then maybe, just maybe, she’d find Zack, tucked away in a secret chamber.

  Leaving her candle on the floor, she retrieved a ladder from the adjacent town house. She struggled with the roots for a moment before she was able to slide the ladder into position. She tentatively placed a foot on the bottom rung, half expecting the roof to crumble at the weight of the leaning ladder. Nothing. Putting both feet on the rung, she bounced. Drips of water splashed from the dangling roots onto her head and shoulders and a shower of dirt dusted her hair, but no rocks or mortar fell. She picked up her candle and climbed, careful not to spill the molten wax over her fingers again.

  The wattle and daub around the hole felt solid, strengthened by the network of juniper roots that spiderwebbed over the original plasterwork. She grasped the slender tree trunk and pulled herself up. Kneeling on the adobe roof, she set the candle down beside her and surveyed her surroundings.

  The candle flickered madly now, down to the last few millimeters of wick and wax. Its intermittent light revealed the stonework of the adjoining structure to her left, a solid wall of rock in back of her. The curve of the limestone arch began somewhere in the darkness above her head and descended down to her left, where the cliffside was furry with moss. She crawled to it and pressed a finger to the lumpy growth, feeling the velvety dampness. The ruins backed up to the underground chambers of the Curtain. The wall here must have cracked in the last earthquake, allowing the continual dampness inside the cavern to seep out into the ruins. Was that the sound of trickling water? She was probably listening to the creek inside the Curtain.

  With a last waft of smoke, the candle flickered out, leaving her in the dark, literally now as well as figuratively. The breeze was dying down. Between gusts, the nightly chorus of tree frogs drifted up from the canyon below. This was the end of the road, at least for tonight. No hidden stairways. No Coyote Charlie. No Fred Fischer. And no Zack.

  Clouds blotted out most of the light from moon and stars, but the puffy billows were on the move, rolling quickly across the sky. A faint scent floated on the air: Camembert cheese? Sure, Summer. Her empty stomach had translated the acrid odor of the burnt candle wick into the smell of food. Damn thief—at least he could have left her something to munch on.

  She checked her watch. Ten twenty. An hour earlier in Washington State. She suddenly remembered her request to Blake, switched on her phone, and dialed home.

  “Deep Throat here,” he answered. “Meet me in the southwest corner of the parking garage in two hours.”

  “Knock it off, Blake. I’ve got limited battery power.”

  “Did anyone ever tell you that you’re no fun?”

  “Did you find anything in the files?”

  “Maybe.” She heard the rustle of paper from the other end. “There’s an article about sustainable logging on Indian reservations.”

  “In Oregon?” she asked.

  More rustling. “No, it says Montana.”

  “Then that’s not it. Next?”

  “Native Americans claiming rights to shellfish harvesting along the Oregon Coast?”

  She sighed. “Didn’t I say that I was looking for something about old-growth forests?”

  “It has the words ‘old growth,’ ” Blake argued. He quoted, “The tribe once lived on these beaches, where the old-growth forests grow right down to the surf line.”

  The line was growing staticky. The Low Power icon was blinking; pretty soon it would glow constantly in warning. “Anything else?”

  “One more. I found a clipping about these tree-sitters. They called themselves Earth Spirits, and lived in the old growth to—quote—‘save the trees from the demons with chainsaws who worship money more than Mother Nature.’ Unquote.”

  She straightened. “Read on.”

  “There’s nothing specific that says anything about Native Americans, but they gave themselves kind of tribal-sounding nicknames: Eagle Kovich, Wolf Davinski, Fawn Bronwin, Panther Pederson, Kokopetti Dane.”

  “Kokopetti? Sounds more Italian than Indian.”

  “Uh, just a minute, let me turn on the lamp. Koko . . . it’s Kokopelli, not Kokopetti. Kokopelli’s that Navajo hunchback god, isn’t he?”

  “I don’t know if he’s Navajo or if he’s a god, but yeah, he’s some kind of southwestern Indian figure. No Charlies or Carloses?”

  “Just animals and Kokopelli.”

  “All men?”

  “It’s kind of hard to tell for sure from this photo. Looks cold; they’re all wearing stocking caps or hoods. But I’d guess three guys, two girls. Does it mean anything to you?”

  “I’m not sure yet. Thanks.”

  “You’ll be back in a couple of days?”

  Assuming I survive the night, she thought. But she said, “Yeah, a couple of days. Pet Simon for me.” She turned off the phone.

  Could Coyote Charlie be an Earth Spirit? It sounded possible, even probable.

  Avoiding the damp patches of moss and lichen, she positioned herself with her back against the vertical cliff wall, her knapsack at her side, and her legs straight out in front of her. One foot rested on the top rung of the ladder. She’d feel the vibrations if anyone started up, dowse him with the pepper spray she held in her lap, kick him in the head if need be. Was that a decent plan? She was so punchy with fatigue and hunger that it was hard to judge.

 
; The surroundings were colorless in the patchy moonlight. The ruins, cliffs, boulders, and rock floor were all flat, dark gray; the trees and bushes black skeletons whose shadows lent the only depth to the monochromatic landscape.

  Stars and wispy clouds mingled in a patchwork sky out over the valley. The heavens looked cold, but she felt warm enough in her sheltered location. The cougar scratches on her thigh were red hot and swollen, bulging through the rip in her pants. Damn. Why hadn’t she grabbed the antibiotic ointment from Kent’s first-aid kit? The fingers of her left hand throbbed where the wax had dripped over them. The muscles in her neck felt like wire rope that might break under the strain at any moment.

  She’d thought that yesterday had been horrible, but today definitely took the prize. Might be more skeletons up here, Perez had said. Maybe a serial murderer had been operating in the park for years. Maybe nobody had noticed before because he’d picked off homeless people, like the Mexican family she’d seen by the river, like the pregnant teenager Kent had mentioned. Maybe Zack was the first that anyone had missed.

  Fred Fischer was on the run. The man had a history of violence and a convenient job, truck driving. Did he return to his favorite area periodically to hide his latest grisly trophy? The connection between him and Ferguson was troubling. What had Fischer been up to in his youth that Ferguson had “saved” him from? And how had Ferguson saved him?

  And how was she going to keep the hunters from the cougars tomorrow? The questions were endless. Her answers, nonexistent.

  HE inhaled slowly, analyzing the air for her scent. She was so tiny, so tired, so sad. He thought about going to her, stroking her hair while she was sleeping. Hair the color of moonlight. He would not have taken her things if he’d known who they belonged to. Then he’d heard her voice. Good thing the boy had been asleep, then. He looked over at the still form next to him, was startled to see the blue eyes looking back now.