Back of Beyond

by C. J. Box

  One of them was the killer. The other …

  He said aloud, “Larry, you treacherous son of a bitch. Why?”

  22

  By the light of a headlamp, Jed McCarthy stripped down to his T-shirt and underwear in his tent and jammed his outside clothing into a stuff sack he’d use for a pillow, then checked his watch. Getting late. Dakota should be back any second.

  He’d left some clients at the fire. Two of the three Wall Streeters were still there, Knox and D’Amato. So was Donna Glode. And K. W. Wilson. Ted Sullivan had left a half hour after he had words with Rachel Mina, saying, “Better go try to patch things up.” Walt Franck had also gone to his tent.

  His tooled leather business backpack was stored where it always was, near the head of the tent. He retrieved it and unzipped the front flap, then reached down through his files, canisters of bear spray, the new portable GPS unit, and his loaded .44 Magnum secured in an Uncle Mike’s Cordura holster by an interior zipper that was hidden by design. The light from his headlamp bobbed around while he did it. He kept his ears open for Dakota’s boots swishing through the tall grass toward the tent.

  He withdrew a thin brown envelope made stiff by the eight-and-a-half-by-twelve-inch piece of cardboard inside and dumped the contents on the top of his sleeping bag. Newspaper clippings, GPS coordinates, and most important, the Google Earth maps he’d printed off on high-grade photographic paper while Margaret Cooper was choking back tears out in the reception area as she read (out loud) the instructions on how to operate Windows Vista. She’d had no idea what he was doing.

  The photographic images were precise. He found the location of Camp One, where they were now, and traced the trail south along the shoreline of the lake with the tip of his finger. He reviewed the place he’d marked with an X at the natural junction where they’d cut west toward Two Ocean Plateau as he described it to his clients around the campfire. Although the terrain and the creeks were burned into his memory from endless hours with the maps, he wanted to reassure himself for the hundredth time that it looked passable, that he could lead the group up and away from the Thorofare on terrain they could handle, that the horses and mules could navigate.

  He hoped the new route from the Thorofare to Two Ocean was as clear and unencumbered as the photographs showed. He wished he knew how old the images Google had posted were. If they were a couple of years old, he prayed there’d been no severe timber blowdowns or microbursts in the meanwhile. In the back of his mind was his memory of seeing an entire mountainside in Yellowstone leveled by a nighttime weather phenomenon that scattered hundreds of acres of lodgepole pines like so many pick-up sticks. No one had seen it happen, and the Park Service, being the Park Service, refused to acknowledge that it did. But Yellowstone was a world of its own, as Jed knew better than anyone, and the physical landscape could change literally overnight as geysers shot through the thin crust or earthquakes rattled the ground or unspeakably violent storms blew through. Fires would be okay because they’d help open up the undergrowth, and he knew there had been a dozen lightning-caused blazes in the area the previous fall.

  But he knew that no matter how carefully he’d planned things they’d never go exactly right in Yellowstone. The place seemed designed to foil human plans and aspirations. Conditions within the Yellowstone ecosystem were ramped up and exaggerated compared to the world around it. Every natural phenomenon—storms, fires, temperatures, thermal activity, wildlife, geography, weather in general—always seemed pushed to extremes. The more time he spent in the park the smaller he felt, and the less in control of the world around him. All he could do at times was point himself in the general direction of where he wanted to go—both figuratively and literally—and hope he’d get there. He remembered Bull Mitchell telling him something like that when he bought his company, but Jed discounted the statement and credited Bull’s advancing age. Now he knew it to be true.

  He jumped when Dakota suddenly entered the tent. He hadn’t heard her coming, and she hadn’t signaled him in any way like she sometimes did with a whistle or a finger-drum on the taut tent wall. It was simple camp etiquette to do so and he’d taught her that. She’d disregarded it, though, and he scrambled to stuff the maps back into the envelope before she saw what he was doing.

  She winced when he looked up at her and shined his headlamp directly into her eyes, pretending it was inadvertent.

  “Jeez, Jed,” she said, waving her hand at him, “you’re blinding me.”

  “Sorry.”

  “I bet.”

  Once the papers were back in the envelope and the envelope slipped under his sleeping bag, he turned his head and the beam of light. That was too close, he thought.

  She didn’t unzip her jacket or remove her boots, but sat Indian style on the foot of her sleeping bag.

  He pulled the headlamp off and hung it from a loop so the light hit the inside tent wall and was diffused. “Horses okay?” he asked.

  “Yup.”

  “Food hung up?”

  She nodded.

  “Kitchen wiped down and locked up?”

  “Like always,” she said.

  “Anyone left at the camp?”

  Dakota said, “Donna Glode is still there with Tony D’Amato and James Knox. Knox is trying to protect his friend from her, I guess.”

  “Donna will be easy to track if she gets lost,” Jed said. “We’ll just have to follow the cougar tracks.”

  Dakota didn’t even smile as she fixed her eyes on him. “Jed, what the fuck is going on?”

  “Keep your voice down,” Jed said. Even though their tent was two hundred yards from the other tents and closer to the horses than the camp itself, he always worried about being overheard by any guests, since the topic of conversation was generally them.

  Her eyes blazed in the semidarkness. “You’re breaking every damn rule you’ve ever told me about,” she said. “You’ve got something going on here or else you’ve just lost your damn mind.”

  He started to speak but she cut him off.

  “Never leave the guests to tend the fire at night,” she said. She lowered her voice and added a low drawl to mimic his cadence as much as possible. “Gently encourage the guests to take their socializing to the tents and wait them out if necessary so you can secure the camp and make sure there’s no food or anything around to draw animals in, then put the fire out with water. Then do a walk-around to double-check the night checklist. Last, make sure the animals are fine.”

  He hated when she mocked him.

  Which didn’t stop her. She said, “Never encourage alcohol consumption. We may want a nightcap of our own in the tent before we turn in, Dakota, but never drink in front of the clients or encourage them to do so.

  “Never antagonize a paying guest and promote rancor among the group, Dakota,” she said. “Be the facilitator to smooth out any disagreements. Be on everyone’s side, or lead them to think you are. Be a benevolent dictator, but more the former than the latter. The whole experience gets poisoned if resentment is left to linger.”

  He held up a hand to interrupt her but she was on a roll.

  “Never fraternize with the guests until the last night, Dakota. Keep a professional distance so they respect you. You are the captain of the ship. Maintain a little mystery about you, so they’ll listen when you tell them something. Be professional at all times. Don’t become one of them, Dakota. Never let your guard down to the clients, Dakota,” she said, angry.

  Then she leaned forward and backhanded him on his shoulder. Before he could react, she said, “So what do you do, you hand them a bottle! Then you sit with them and get them all stirred up about taking a new route. And what is this about water levels bein’ up so we can’t stay on the trail, Jed? Where in the hell did that come from?”

  He sat back and glared at her although he was a little taken aback. “Keep your voice down,” he said through clenched teeth. “And where do you get off talking to me like that?”

  “I’m using your own words
,” she said.

  He said, “This is my trip and my company. I’ve been keeping a close eye on the creeks we crossed and the level of the lake all day while you emptied your head and tugged your mules along. You would have seen the same thing I did if you’d been looking. And keep the hell in mind I don’t need to clear every decision with you. Keep the hell in mind this is my outfit and my risk and you’re the hired help.”

  She reacted as if he’d slapped her. She said in her own voice, “Is that all I am to you?”

  He was sorry he said it because he still needed her. But he didn’t take it back. He could tell she was trying not to tear up. No matter how tough she talked or acted, he thought, she was still just a damned girl.

  He knew what her next move would be. Furiously, she started clawing at her sleeping bag, gathering it into a ball she could carry away.

  This wasn’t their first fight, but he sensed the cold edge of finality creeping in unless he headed it off.

  “You can still sleep here,” he said calmly.

  “Bullshit,” she hissed, backing away on her hands and knees toward the door of the tent. “You can sleep alone. I don’t even want to breathe the same air as you tonight.”

  It was the word tonight that made his shoulders relax and his stomach unclench. Tonight meant she didn’t consider the rift permanent.

  He chuckled, then said, “Do whatever you have to do, darlin’. Just don’t let any of the guests see you.”

  “Fuck you, Jed.”

  He quickly sat up and reached over and cupped her chin in his palm, forcing her to stop and look at him. “Don’t escalate things out of proportion,” he said. “I know what I’m doing. Trust me a little bit.”

  “Why should I?” she said, but he knew she was softening.

  “Have I steered us wrong before?”

  She paused, then said, “Not much up to now.”

  He laughed, and felt the tension in her dissipate a little. He said, “Before you go, did you complete your job tonight?”

  He knew her slavish obligation to her duties would further override her anger. She was like that.

  Dakota jerked her face away from his hand, sat back on her haunches, and dug into her coat pocket. He figured she was as angry now at her own caving in as she was at him.

  She threw a handful of cartridges in his lap. They landed heavily and he picked one up. He said, “Three-fifty-seven Magnum. Did you find any more? A box of shells?”

  She shook her head.

  “And you left the gun, of course,” he said. “So he might not even know you unloaded it.”

  She just glared at him.

  Wilson would be in a dilemma, now, Jed knew. If the man asked who took the bullets, he’d be admitting he brought a firearm on the trip. It had happened before, and in every case the guest never said a word afterward.

  “You don’t have to leave,” Jed said. “It’s cold out there.”

  But she’d committed herself and although there was a hint of doubt on her face, he knew she’d go.

  “Come back in if you get cold,” he said.

  She grunted the curse at him again as she backed out through the door trailing her sleeping bag and pad. Before disappearing into the night, though, she paused and looked in.

  “I nearly forgot,” she said. “He also has a satellite phone.”

  Jed’s eyes widened. “He does?”

  Her mouth curled into a sneer. “And he’s got a file folder filled with aerial photos,” she said, “just like those ones you tried to hide from me when I came in.”

  And she was gone.

  Oh shit, Jed thought. This I didn’t expect.

  * * *

  Gracie didn’t know what time it was during the night when she snapped awake at the sound of blows or thumping footfalls outside the tent, or heard what she thought must be the grunting of a bear. Or a man or woman being wordlessly beaten.

  23

  Gracie was late to breakfast. She’d barely slept until the last few hours as the tent walls fused with morning sun, and when she finally awoke she was sweating in her sleeping bag and Danielle was already gone.

  She stood and stretched and yawned. Her face felt dirty and her hair was matted to the side and took furious brushing to set right. Danielle’s sleeping bag was crumpled and puffy on the pad. She vaguely remembered her sister cursing and grunting as she pulled her clothes on earlier.

  Outside the tent, it was cold, still, clear, and breathtakingly beautiful. Bright white sun danced on the ripples of Yellowstone Lake and electrified the dew in the grass. A bald eagle cruised along the surface of the water, talons dropped, fishing. Far across the water was the smudge of an island in the lake. Boils of steam rose from vents and dissipated in the clear morning air. She smelled woodsmoke from the fire and heard subdued voices from the kitchen camp.

  Her father stood on the path between her and the morning fire, hands in the pockets of his jacket, head down, feet set on opposite sides of the path as if blocking it.

  She thought, Ambush.

  As she walked out into the wet grass to go around him, he said, “Gracie, please. We have to talk.”

  “Nothing to talk about.”

  “I didn’t like how things developed last night,” he said. “I don’t like to see you go to bed angry with me.”

  She snorted and rolled her eyes and passed him. He fell in behind her, speaking low so he wouldn’t draw the attention of the group already eating breakfast.

  “I wanted you and Danielle to get to know her, get to like her,” he said. “I wanted you two to get comfortable with the idea of us together. I wanted you to want us to be together, for me to be happy and for us to be happy. I guess what I’m saying, Gracie, is I want your blessing.”

  She stopped and turned around. He was right behind her. She said, “You use words girls use when they talk to each other. If I want to talk to girls I’ll talk to girls, not my dad. If you want to be with Rachel then tell me and be with her. I’m fourteen years old. I don’t give blessings. You’re the dad, be the dad,” she said. “And man up. That’s all I ask.”

  She left him there with his mouth open but no sound coming out.

  * * *

  She expected chiding for being late but no one said a thing and she realized the moment she stepped into the campfire ring that something was seriously wrong. All she received were brief and furtive glances. She felt as though she’d just blundered into the middle of an argument and stopped it cold.

  Danielle sat with Justin on the same log they’d occupied the night before. Walt sat near them, as did Rachel Mina, who eyed her coolly. The Wall Streeters stood and held their plates aloft, as if they had an appointment to keep. The menu was scrambled eggs, bacon, hash browns, toast, and coffee. Although the food looked and smelled good, no one appeared to be really eating it. Donna Glode sat alone. She looked pale and sick. Strands of her hair fell into her face and the food on her plate was untouched. She stared at the fire although the flames were hard to see in the morning light.

  Who was missing?

  Jed, who was behind the kitchen station, said, “Hey, girl, come over here and get some breakfast. Get your dad to come eat, too.”

  She looked around for Dakota but couldn’t locate her.

  * * *

  Dumbly, Gracie started to go get her dad but he’d joined her. He looked under his brow at her, as if trying to transmit a message.

  They got tin plates and eating utensils. She glanced over her shoulder at the others.

  She said, “Where is Mr. Glode and that guy Wilson? Where’s Dakota?”

  Her dad said, “I think that’s what everyone was discussing when you walked up.”

  Jed gave her a scoop of eggs and three strips of bacon. He said, “I sent Dakota back on the trail to find a couple of strays.”

  Gracie waited for a further explanation, but Jed ignored her. He was studying the others around the campfire with an almost scary intensity, she thought.

  Gracie sat by Dani
elle and her sister reached over and patted her on the shoulder, as if touching base. It was an unusual and warm gesture, Gracie thought.

  She listened in. Tristan Glode and K. W. Wilson hadn’t come to breakfast because they were gone. Their things had been cleared out of their tents and both of their horses were missing.

  “No,” Jed said to answer a question from James Knox, “I can’t say it’s ever happened before. I’ve had the few rare unhappy customers, but I’ve never had any who up and went home. Especially on my horses.”

  “I don’t see them sneaking away together,” Walt said, to snickers from Knox and Drey Russell.

  Jed said, “I wish they would have talked to me about it. Being on your own in Yellowstone is dangerous.”

  Gracie found herself watching Donna Glode, seeing what kind of impact the speculation was having on her. After all, her husband had left her. But she didn’t look distraught, Gracie thought. She looked guilty.

  This was confirmed when Danielle leaned over and whispered in her ear, “She didn’t spend the night in her tent with him.”

  Gracie nodded slightly to indicate she’d heard but didn’t give her sister away by looking at her or responding. Gracie noted how Donna glanced repeatedly at D’Amato, hoping, no doubt, he’d share a wink back. As far as she could tell, D’Amato pointedly didn’t turn his head toward Donna. And he seemed much more inhibited than he’d been so far. In fact, he looked ashamed, like a little boy. His two friends shot glances at him while they ate as if seeing him in a new light.

  Walt said, “Do you think Dakota will find them and talk them into coming back?”

  Jed said he hoped so. He looked stricken as well, Gracie thought. Maybe a little unsure of himself, for the first time. Like he had too much swirling around in his head. “I wish we knew when they left,” Jed said.

  That’s when Gracie said, “I heard something last night. Am I the only one who did?”

  She was. With Rachel observing her very carefully, her dad asked what she’d heard.