Patrick
Hunting with kids is like herding feral cats, Patrick thought. Not for the first time, his irritation with Susanne flared. She should have come with us. He’d seen a decent-sized bull elk with what looked like seven cow elk with him, just up the side of the hill in front of them. The animals were in a clearing near a tree line. But they wouldn’t be there long. Patrick had shooed the kids off their horses, and they’d tied their mounts to trees. Patrick grabbed the bow and quiver. They weren’t in position to line up a shot yet. They had to hike closer. Much closer.
He motioned the kids to follow him. Sighting one last time through the binoculars, he struck off uphill through the forest. The pine needles made for slippery going, especially with the bow and quiver on his back throwing off his center of gravity. The kids sounded like a herd of buffalo. A branch snapped. One of them sneezed. The other said “Ow” so loudly that no self-respecting elk would remain within a hundred miles.
He turned with a finger to his lips. “Like Indians,” he mouthed.
Perry nodded. Trish’s lips moved, but no sound came out. Her expression left no doubt that he wouldn’t like what she’d said, however. Was she talking to herself? Talking back? Or just mocking him? He tamped down another flicker of irritation. This was supposed to be fun. He was going to by-God have fun if it killed him. He felt his lips moving, and he mashed them together.
When the forest thinned, he slowed. By his reckoning, the elk should be on the far side of the next clearing. Behind him, the kids were moving at the speed of turtles. They definitely needed more-active lifestyles. Trish was playing basketball and Perry played soccer, but the workouts just weren’t like they were back when he played in his youth. He tried to be a good example to them. He ran. Lifted weights. Played adult-league sports. And, of course, they all hiked. But he was barely breathing hard, and them? They sounded like the bellows their farrier used. Patrick vowed to do better, to give them more chances to stay fit by having fun. Like this trip.
Movement ahead caught his eye. He held up his fist, then lifted the binoculars to his eyes. The bull was in range, head down as he grazed, and Patrick had a clear shot from downwind. Perfect. If the bull moved away, there were always the cows. Their archery tag was good for any elk. This was Perry’s first chance to hunt under his own tag, though, so rather than take the shot himself, Patrick motioned his son forward.
He pressed his lips into Perry’s hair, just above his ear. “Yours if you want it. See him?”
Perry nodded, his eyes gleaming.
Patrick lifted the bow out of its rigging, then withdrew one of the green anodized aluminum arrows. He held the arrow while Perry put his hands reverently on the bow. Then he took the arrow, and dropped it. Patrick smiled. The boy’s hands were quaking worse than aspen leaves in the wind. He gave him another, and this one Perry knocked without a problem. Patrick picked up the discarded arrow from the ground.
He whispered, “Check to be sure everyone in your party is behind your line of fire and aware that you’re shooting, son.”
Perry raised his eyebrows at his sister. She shrugged.
“Now show me your stance.”
Perry faced his body at a forty-five-degree angle to the elk with his toes pointed straight at the bull. He gripped the bow with his left hand and held it in front of him.
“Loosen your grip. Firm, but not too tight.”
Perry exhaled and loosened it.
“Now, don’t forget to anchor the string right by your mouth.”
Perry pulled the string back. He made it to his chin. It was good enough.
Patrick nodded at him. “Fire when ready.”
Perry shook his shoulders and bounced on his toes, then bent his knees. From their left came the sound of loud whoops and pounding hooves. Men. On horseback. The bull elk’s head jerked up. Distracted, Perry lowered his bow.
“Take the shot, Perry. You’re going to miss your chance.”
Perry brought the bow back up, but it was too late. The elk crashed into the woods, followed by the cows Patrick had seen earlier. A keen disappointment cut through Patrick. Two horses burst out of the trees.
Their riders were yelling. “Yah. Yah.”
Even over the noise, Patrick could hear the men laughing. He was steamed. More than steamed. “Hey,” he shouted. He ran into the clearing, waving his arms over his head.
They saw him and swung around toward him, then stopped. He recognized them. They were the jerks who had demanded Patrick give up his campsite to them. The burly guy with the salt-and-pepper hair and the thinner, white-headed one. But hadn’t there been three of them? Anger clouded his vision.
The big man who had taken charge last night took charge again. He guffawed. “It’s big bad daddy-o and his wittle bitty boy.”
Patrick shook his head to clear his vision. He was so mad he’d forgotten about the kids for a second. Perry was standing in clear view of the men. He scanned for Trish. She was out of sight. Good. He hoped she’d stay hidden. What he had to say might really make these guys angry, but it had to be said. They’d just broken several unwritten tenets of the hunters’ code and some wildlife laws to boot.
“You just chased off a herd of elk right as my boy was taking a shot.”
“Sorry.” The big guy smirked. “Didn’t see you.”
His buddy laughed.
“You’d be in serious trouble if a game warden had seen you harassing the elk, too.”
The white-haired man said, “I don’t see any game wardens, do you?”
The big guy was picking his teeth with the tip of a sheath knife. “Nope. Not a one.”
As soon as he got back to Buffalo, Patrick would report the incident to Alan Turner with Game and Fish. Not that it would do any good, but it was the right thing. Now, there was nothing else to say. Patrick turned and picked up the bow and the two arrows. He walked down the hill away from the men, Perry close by his side.
The big guy yelled, “My boy is sweet on your daughter, Doctor Dad. Hey, sweetness, you think we can’t see you hiding behind that tree? You aren’t shaped like a flagpole. Hell, I think we’re all sweet on your girl. Unless that’s your wife?”
Patrick went from angry to a fearful rage in zero point two seconds. He wheeled. “Leave my daughter alone.”
The two men laughed in his face.
The big guy said, “Geez, Doctor Flint. We didn’t know you were so sensitive. I guess you’re protective of your own womenfolk, then.”
Patrick had no idea what the man meant. He only knew that he wanted his kids as far away from these jerks as he could get them. Who would act this way? They had to be drunk. Or high. Trish came out of the trees and stood by him and Perry. Patrick gave their shoulders gentle pushes, herding them in front of him and blocking them from view.
He glanced back as the hoofbeats restarted, in time to see them leaving the clearing. The big guy waved to him with his middle finger in the air. And that’s when Patrick realized the guy had called him by his name. Do I know that asshole?
Chapter Fifteen: Restart
Buffalo, Wyoming
September 19, 1976, 6:00 p.m.
Susanne
Susanne put her head down on her dining room table. The wood was cold and soothing. The sheriff and deputies had finally finished with their questions, and she’d shown them out five minutes before. It had only taken her a hot second to identify Billy Kemecke in the photograph they showed her anyway. Between that, the Big Horn County sheriff’s truck parked by Perry’s old jungle gym in the backyard, the handcuffs he’d cut off and dropped by the tool bench in their backyard shed, and the orange prison jumpsuit he’d left on her bedroom floor, it had been a pretty solid ID. The only real question was why Kemecke had come to her home.
Unlucky, they’d suggested.
A mild understatement, she’d thought.
The rest of the time they’d spent fingerprinting and documenting everything she’d told them. What he’d done. What he’d said. What he’d t
aken. She’d started with her drive up to the mountains, and how Patrick and the kids had never checked into their campsite. How she’d come home alone after dark, where Kemecke got her. At first they hadn’t seemed very interested in the part of the story about her family, but she’d pressed the issue until they agreed to put out a BOLO and called the Forest Service about it. It made her feel a little better, but not much. She’d never missed Patrick as much as she did then.
Mostly, the day was a blur. People had been in and out of her house since shortly after Ronnie phoned dispatch. Ronnie hadn’t left her until the whole posse from her department had arrived, and then only to run next door and change into her Johnson County sheriff uniform and hurry back to help. It had been so busy, Susanne barely had time for her own thoughts. When she did, they weren’t about Kemecke or what he’d put her through. They were about Patrick, Trish, and Perry. They were about her fear that something had happened to them. Or would happen to them. She didn’t know which, just that she couldn’t squash the anxiety. After a full day of this, Susanne was utterly wrung out, and nauseous from hunger.
And alone.
Not that the deputies hadn’t urged her to call someone to be with her, and even offered to give her a ride to stay with a friend. They’d been quite kind about it, actually. Briefly she considered calling Vangie. But she was talked-out and peopled-out. She had just wanted food, a shower, and bed. With her husband in it.
Until law enforcement had left. After that, she got rattled.
A door shut somewhere in the house, and it was like a gun had been fired near her ears. The hallway bathroom. She jumped to her feet, gasped, and clapped her hand over her mouth. Her vision tunneled. In a split second, she was at the back door—no keys, no purse—ready to flee across the sagebrush.
“Susanne, wait, it’s me.”
The familiar voice stopped her. Susanne turned and saw her neighbor. She dropped her hand from the doorknob and lifted it to her heaving chest. Ronnie. The one Ferdinand adored so much that he went to her house for a second feeding every morning, which is why Ronnie had come over at all. To check on her buddy Ferdie when he hadn’t shown up.
Susanne’s brow furrowed. But she’d thought Ronnie had left.
Before Susanne could ask, Ronnie said, “I didn’t mean to scare you. I stuck around to see if you’d let me fix you a bite to eat. And I can stay if you’d like. You’ve had quite a scare.”
Yes, she had. But she wanted to say no. Wanted to say it badly. Only she didn’t get the words out fast enough. Ronnie was already in the kitchen—refrigerator open, rooting around—before Susanne moistened her lips to speak.
So what she said was, “Thanks.”
“Think nothing of it.” Ronnie lifted an egg carton. “How about I make you breakfast for dinner?”
Susanne nodded.
“If I were you, I’d want a shower and jammies. I should have your food ready by the time you’re done.”
It was less lonely with Ronnie there, but it was also easier to feel everything she didn’t want to feel. Mainly, weak. Vulnerable. Scared for Patrick and the kids. They should have been at Hunter Corral. They weren’t. That meant they were missing, in her book, even if law enforcement didn’t agree. The waterworks started again. She hated this. Hated it especially in front of strong, self-reliant Ronnie. But she couldn’t help it.
She nodded again, and a tear slipped down her cheek.
Ronnie cleared her throat. “Don’t you worry.” She patted her hip. “I’m packing. If he comes back, he won’t get past me.”
“He won’t come back.”
“Damn straight. And the rest of it’s just stuff. Insurance will cover your car. Even your jacket, the gun, clothes, equipment. You’re safe, that’s what matters.”
“That’s not it, either. Not really.”
Ronnie looked at her with her head tilted, waiting for an explanation.
“It’s Patrick and the kids. I miss them so much. And I’m worried about them.” Now the tears fell freely.
Ronnie set the eggs down and came to Susanne. She’d been present when Susanne told the story earlier. Ronnie took Susanne by the shoulders and held her at arm’s length. “There are countless places to camp in those mountains. It’s going to be all right. Everyone will be keeping an eye out for them, and when they find them, someone will call. Okay?”
“I feel like I should be looking for them.”
“Well, you can’t do that at night. The best thing you can do for them now is rest. You’ve had a horrible experience. A traumatic one. Let’s get you recovered and see how things look in the morning.”
Susanne didn’t even nod. She just walked down the hall like a zombie. In the safety of her own bathroom, she turned on the shower, stepped under a scalding hot spray, and sank to her knees, sobbing.
Chapter Sixteen: Halt
Southwest of Walker Prairie, Bighorn National Forest, Wyoming
September 19, 1976, 7:00 p.m.
Trish
Since her dad let Trish take the lead on the way back, they made it in half the time it would have taken otherwise. And they used a designated stream crossing on the trail, one where Goldie didn’t have to swim. Duke had to trot to keep up, but so what. Horses liked heading home more than leaving, anyway, so Trish counted him as the lucky one. She gave Goldie a kick, asking for more speed. The sun was setting. It was getting dark, and she didn’t like it.
She was still mad at her dad about the whole day, but even more, she was disgusted by the guys who had run the elk off. What kind of people did that? Jerks, that’s who. And what was it with guys, anyway? Why couldn’t they just be normal, like girls. Non-threatening. Non-mean. Non-whacko. Women didn’t have to act all crazy and scary. She just wanted to be zipped into their tent between her dad and Perry. Maybe her dad would take them home tomorrow. Even he couldn’t be weird enough to think today had gone well.
They rode the trail in silence, not even passing any other campsites along the way. It was Sunday night. Maybe people had come out for the weekend and had now gone home for jobs and school and stuff.
Ahead, she recognized the last curve in the trail before their campsite. But she also heard something she didn’t expect. Men’s voices. At first, she was scared, thinking about the jerky elk chasers they’d encountered. But even as those thoughts ran through her head, another one popped in. Brandon! Maybe he found the note she’d left for him. Instead of slowing down, she urged Goldie into a lope. They came around the bend and she saw their tent.
It was dusk, so it was hard to see. But not so hard that she couldn’t make out two guys with shaved heads and beards sitting on the ground cross-legged by the unlit campfire ring.
She stopped Goldie so fast the horse took a few steps backward. “Dad,” she whispered. “Look.”
Patrick pulled Reno up beside her. He must have still been rattled by the elk chasers, too, because he pulled his .357 Magnum from its holster. Extending it to her, he said, “You and Perry ride back a ways. I’ll call you when it’s safe.”
“What?” Perry said, his voice too loud.
The men’s heads turned toward them.
“Go,” Patrick said, his voice terse.
Trish tucked the revolver into the back of her waistband. It felt heavy, unbalanced. Awkward. As much time as she’d spent practicing with this gun, her hands still shook.
“Come on,” Trish said to Perry.
He didn’t argue anymore, thank God, and the two of them retreated down the two-track path. They didn’t make it far before Trish wheeled Goldie to face their camp. She wanted to stay close enough to see and hear what was going on.
Her dad approached the two men with his arm up, like he was greeting them. She hated that her dad didn’t have his gun. What good was it to her? Her hands were shaking too hard to hit anything if she shot it.
“Good evening,” Patrick said.
She could just barely make out his words.
“Who are they?” Perry asked.
&n
bsp; “Don’t know.”
“Are they bad?”
“Don’t know that either.”
“What is Dad going to do?”
“Shh.”
There was something familiar about these men. Trish noticed two dirt bikes parked near the trail. She wasn’t sure how she’d missed them before. They were dirty, but bright. One yellow, one red. Her father and the two men started talking. Now she could only hear their voices, not their words. The larger of the two men stood up, holding something small and square. Her dad took it, examined it. He turned toward Trish and Perry and motioned them to come back to camp.
Everything was okay. At least she hoped it was.
Perry looked at her. “Should we go?”
She nodded. “We go.” She rode Goldie ahead of him again. Her horse’s hoofbeats reverberated in her skull. Metal shoes clanking on rock. Or was it her heartbeat?
When she reached the edge of the campsite, her dad smiled and held up what looked like a postcard. “Hey, kids. These guys got some up-close Polaroid shots of a mother moose and her baby.”
The older of the two men grunted. “Way close, you know? We were hunkered down, watching for animals. She startled us, man, but she must have been in a good mood, because she didn’t kill us.”
The other man grinned. “She, like, posed.”
“Were you hunting?” Patrick asked.
“Nah, man, we don’t kill animals.”
Now that she could see them better, she realized these were the guys that had ridden by the day before. They’d broken up the tense moment with the men who had tried to claim the campsite as their own. She relaxed some, until she remembered the note she’d left for Brandon. Had he come to see her? She glanced down at the rock she’d used to anchor it. The note was still there. She dismounted and led Goldie forward a few steps, bending to pick up the rock, and with it, the note, before continuing to her dad and the picture.
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