Back of Beyond

by C. J. Box

  “What?” Cody asked.

  “I got a question for you,” Mitchell said, turning his horse around so he could glare at Cody and leaning forward in his saddle with both of his huge hands on the horn. Cody had learned from his Montana outfitter uncles that true horsemen—unlike himself—would rather turn their mounts around than turn their heads. “Why the hell did you hire me if you’re going to question every damn thing I do?”

  Cody shifted his weight, trying to find a position in the saddle that eased the burns. “It’s just this trail we’re on. It’s obvious it hasn’t been used in years and there are places I can’t even tell it’s there. So naturally I—”

  “Naturally you start yapping at me,” Mitchell said basso profundo, “when you should be keeping quiet.”

  “I want to know what’s going on. You can’t expect me to just sit here for hours wondering where we’re going.”

  Mitchell reached up and tilted his cowboy hat back and rubbed his forehead. “I thought you wanted to catch them,” he said.

  “I do.”

  “Then the only way we’re going to do it in a timely fashion is to ride cross-country and cut all the corners. We should intercept the main trail by early this afternoon. They’ll still have about half a day on us but with all those rookie riders and trail horses, we’ll make up plenty of time.”

  Cody nodded. “Thank you for that. All you needed to tell me was you knew where you were going and you had a plan.”

  Mitchell shook his head again.

  Cody said, “All you had to tell me was you were familiar with this sort-of trail we’re on and that it will eventually run into the main trail where Jed is.”

  Mitchell said, “I ain’t never been on this trail in my life.”

  With that, he grinned crookedly and turned his horse back around and clicked his tongue to get him moving again.

  Cody moaned and patted his shirt for his cigarettes.

  * * *

  Cody and Bull Mitchell had approached Yellowstone Park from the northwest in the dark pulling a beat-up horse trailer. They’d hidden Cody’s Ford in an empty outbuilding at Jed McCarthy’s compound and transferred his gear to Bull Mitchell’s rig. Mitchell drove a dented F-250 pickup and sipped from a plastic go cup of coffee, and Cody tried to get some sleep since he hadn’t gotten any the night before. Every time he closed his eyes his mind swirled with Technicolor visions of cabins burning down, hotels burning up, conspiracy, and betrayal.

  He’d finally dozed for a few minutes when he was jolted awake by a violent pitching of the truck. When he opened his eyes and reached out for the dashboard to find out what had happened, he saw they’d turned off the highway onto an ancient two-track that skirted a dark river and vanished ahead in a bank of dark timber.

  “What’s this?” he’d asked, groggy.

  “Old Indian trick,” Mitchell said.

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  “Means we sure as hell can’t drive through the gate at the park and explain to the ranger who you are and why we’re bringing horses in without taillights, so we’re sneaking in through a back door.”

  Mitchell gestured vaguely ahead in the dark. “This is an old fire and service road nobody’s supposed to know about. It’s from the old days when the Park Service actually provided service and put out fires, so we’re talking a really long time ago. We can get pretty deep into the park without anyone knowing we’re here.”

  Then Mitchell added, “I hope. They might have blocked it off.”

  Cody asked, “How long has it been since you were on it?”

  Mitchell shrugged and sipped at his coffee. “Seven, eight years,” he said. “Maybe more.”

  “Jesus,” Cody said. “What if it’s blocked?”

  “We’ll figure something out,” Mitchell said, and shrugged. “Always do. I got a chain saw in the back in case we need to cut trees and a winch on the front in case we get stuck. Of course, I haven’t tested either one out in a few years, so let’s just hope they work if we need ’em. I got shovels and a handsaw if they don’t. At least I think I do.”

  When Cody just stared, Mitchell said, “Keep in mind this is Yellowstone. Anything can happen here and plans always go wrong. It’s just the nature of the place.”

  * * *

  The road was passable, although Cody and Mitchell twice had to get out of the truck and cut a path through fallen trees.

  “This just seems wrong,” Cody said, lifting green branches out of the way of the idling F-250.

  “It is wrong,” Bull Mitchell said, revving the motor on his chain saw to keep it running. He was haloed by oily blue smoke.

  “Breaking into a national park seems like breaking into a church,” Cody said.

  Mitchell snorted and said, “That’s a result of too much indoctrination in public school and too many Disney shows. It’s great country—you’ll see—but it isn’t all sweetness and light. Charlie the Lonesome Cougar would happily take a chunk out of Bambi’s tender throat. This place will eat you up and spit you out if you’re ever off your guard. Especially where we’re going.”

  * * *

  Dawn rose pink and cold and sudden waves of rain lashed at the trees and drummed on the hood of the truck but went away as suddenly as they’d come.

  Cody told Mitchell about the fire in his room at the Gallatin Gateway Inn as Mitchell eyed him warily but didn’t utter a word.

  Cody let the story trail off without sharing his suspicions about Larry.

  “Got a question,” Mitchell said, minutes afterward.

  “What?”

  “Why are your hands shaking like that?”

  Cody had held up his right hand. Mitchell was right.

  “DTs?” Mitchell said.

  “I guess.”

  “Let’s hope you don’t have to aim your gun at anything,” Mitchell said.

  “Mind if I smoke?”

  “Damned right I mind.”

  * * *

  As they saddled up in a treeless alcove at the end of the service road, Cody admired Mitchell’s experience and abilities. Although the old man moved slowly, there wasn’t a wasted step or gesture. Mitchell had obviously spent his life around horses and outfitting, and he saddled the horses, filled and balanced the panniers, and tied a series of intricate outfitter knots over the cargo practically in the dark.

  When Mitchell pointed toward the paint horse and grunted, Cody asked why he was called Gipper.

  “Last good president,” Mitchell said, as if the answer had been obvious.

  “Don’t cross him neither,” Mitchell warned. “He ain’t as affable as he looks. Just like his namesake, and his owner: me.”

  * * *

  After five straight hours of riding Cody noticed a subtle increase in hue within the forest and more bars of sunlight. Soon there were large enough openings in the canopy he could see blue sky and distant strings of high-altitude cirrus clouds and finally the trees fell away and the horses broke through over a ridge and the whole bright green world, it seemed, was laid out in front of them. The day had warmed considerably and the wind was so slight it barely rippled through the grass. The sun was straight over their heads and the air was thin and smelled of pine and sage from the valley below and it smelled so fresh he was afraid it would unclog his lungs and slough off the tar and nicotine and give him a coughing fit.

  Bull Mitchell paused his mount. Cody wrestled with Gipper until the gelding finally understood he was to keep walking alongside the packhorse, and Cody pulled his horse to a stop abreast of Mitchell.

  When Cody looked out over the vista of green carpeted saddle slopes with tree-choked river valleys, massive red-veined geological upthrusts that bordered the eastern horizon until they gave up and became mountains, and the vast sprawling tableau of Yellowstone Lake miles ahead and below them, he said, “What big country.”

  Mitchell grunted and reached back into a saddlebag for his binoculars. “Don’t fall in love with it,” Mitchell said. “It’s guarantee
d to break your heart.”

  Cody used the pause to dismount. His legs were stiff and his knees felt as if they’d been tortured on a rack to bend them inward. He hobbled toward the packhorse and began to unbuckle one of the panniers where he’d seen Mitchell pack his duffel bag.

  “See anything?” Cody asked Mitchell.

  After a long pause, Mitchell said, “I see a herd of elk, a couple of coyotes, and an eagle. And a whole meadow filled with buffalo chips. Must have been a hundred of them critters there not long ago.”

  “I meant the pack trip,” Cody said, irritated.

  “Nope.”

  Cody withdrew his duffel and dropped it on the ground. It hurt to squat. As soon as he opened it his stomach clenched. Manically, he rooted through the clothing and the gear.

  “Shit!”

  Mitchell didn’t look down from his glasses, but asked what the problem was.

  “My cigarettes,” Cody said. “I bought a carton of them for the trip. I know I bought a carton and I remember packing them.”

  Mitchell was silent.

  Cody stood up and felt a wave of pure panic. Then he kicked the bag. “Shit. They must have been in the duffel bag that burned up. Shit.”

  Mitchell said, “It’s a long way to the nearest convenience store.”

  Cody stanched an impulse to pull his Sig Sauer out of his holster and shoot the outfitter right there.

  Mitchell shrugged. “Now’s as good a time as any to quit, I suppose. I did it years ago. Just stopped. No big deal.”

  Cody rubbed his face. It felt as if there were tendrils of sinew inside his body tightening up, waiting for the familiar shot of nicotine to relax them. The sky began to spin and the earth itself seemed to undulate, like slow waves across a pool. He patted his pockets, hoping he’d find a spare pack. He rooted through his coat and his saddlebag. In the bottom of a saddlebag he located a cellophane pack that contained … two cigarettes. Cody felt as if he’d won the lottery.

  Mitchell said, “Might as well save ’em.”

  Cody said, “Bullshit,” and lit one up. He’d figure out later when he’d have the last one.

  As he sucked in the smoke his body relaxed and seemed to moan with delight. The sky stopped spinning and the valley below stilled.

  Cody asked, “Does Jed smoke?”

  “Not that I remember.”

  “I bet somebody in that group does,” Cody said, swinging himself painfully back into the saddle. The sores on his thighs burned instantly. “Which is another reason to find ’em fast.”

  Mitchell clucked his tongue and his horse stepped out. He said, “I’m not sure I’m getting paid enough money to come out here into the wilderness with a desperate man withdrawing from alcohol and cigarettes.”

  “Please shut up,” Cody said.

  Mitchell laughed. “First you chew my ass for not talking, and now it’s shut up,” he said. “Make up your damned mind.”

  “I know one thing,” Cody said twenty minutes later, as they descended toward the valley floor. “If I can’t find some cigarettes pretty soon I’m likely to rip the heart out of the guy we’re chasing with my bare hands and feed it to him.”

  Mitchell said, “So who are we chasing, anyway?”

  “Hell if I know.”

  * * *

  Cody rode in silence, consumed by the maelstrom in his head. He recounted the conversations he’d had with Larry and the information Larry had conveyed. The pieces of the puzzle had been laid out on the table by Larry, along with a few more he’d added himself, so the logical sequence should have been for the two of them to start assembly and come up with a viable theory or conclusion or at least to be able to discard unworkable scenarios. But if Larry had been working against him, could he count on anything his ex-partner had said? Were there even other victims at all? Was Larry the puppet master pulling his strings, leading him to where Larry wanted him to go? Or was it simply a matter of Larry getting Cody out of the picture and out of the way? There was no place in the country more isolated than where he was right now, Cody thought. If Larry’s plan had been to get him out of the way, he couldn’t have succeeded better.

  So was there any validity at all to Larry’s information? Was it even true that the last Web site Hank Winters had looked at was the one for Jed McCarthy’s pack trip? Or was that all part of Larry’s misdirection, too?

  He weighed the possibility of turning around and going back. That way, he could wring Larry’s neck and blow up whatever game Larry was playing.

  * * *

  They were in the middle of Camp One before Cody even realized it. Only when Bull Mitchell stopped his horse and swung down to the ground did Cody notice there were rough squares of flattened grass on the plateau where tents had been and an alcove in the trees with a fire pit.

  “Jed’s doing a good job,” Mitchell said, with a lilt of admiration. “He’s running a low-impact outfit. You wouldn’t even know they were here last night except if you knew the exact location. No garbage or human sign except where they flattened the grass.”

  Cody dismounted as well. He thought he knew why real cowboys liked to sit their horses so long: it hurt too much to get off.

  He leaned against Gipper while the blood flowed into his legs and the pain receded. He watched Mitchell roam the campsite and thrust his hand into the fire pit. When he came back wiping the ash on his jeans, he said, “Yup, they were here this morning. The rocks are still warm and the ash is moist from when they put the fire out.”

  “Any idea how long they’ve been gone?”

  Mitchell said, “It’s hard to get everybody up, fed, and get an entire camp packed up. My guess is that they were probably on the trail by nine. So four or five hours is all.”

  Cody swallowed. He tried to imagine his son in the camp just hours before. He hadn’t seen him since last Christmas. He wondered how tall he was now, and how long his hair was.

  Cody started to ask Mitchell how long it would take for them to catch them when he noticed Mitchell looking down toward the shore of the lake and squinting.

  Cody turned, and said, “What are you seeing?”

  Mitchell said, “I thought I caught a glimpse of something down by the water. Something moved. You see it?”

  Cody couldn’t see well enough through the trees so he shifted to his left. Branches were parted enough for him to get an unimpeded view all the way down the slope to the shore of the lake.

  “Wolves,” Cody said. “At least three of them.”

  One wolf was jet-black, another was silver, and the third was mottled gray. Cody could see they were feeding at the water’s edge.

  25

  Gracie lagged behind her sister on the trail, putting distance between Strawberry and Danielle’s horse. It seemed odd to her there were four fewer riders ahead on the second day.

  Despite his friend James Knox’s disapproval and Jed’s pleading, Tony D’Amato had decided the only way he could live with himself was to track down Tristan Glode and try to persuade him to come back. Drey Russell thought D’Amato was on a fool’s mission, but agreed to ride with him. Their plan, they said, was to rejoin the group at Camp Two. Grudgingly, Jed had given the two his maps and told them to look for a marker on which trail to follow when they came back.

  Gracie noticed how Dakota watched the exchange in silence, shaking her head.

  * * *

  It had warmed up enough that Gracie had stripped off her hoodie to her T-shirt. Although she could still see Yellowstone Lake to her left, the path had climbed away from it and they’d gained hundreds of feet of elevation. The rhythmic clop-clop-clop of the horses soothed her and reminded her she was in a beautiful, wild place on a perfect summer day and that not everything was horrible. That Rachel Mina had smiled at her with a hint of sympathetic understanding while they were saddling up had buoyed her more than she would have thought.

  But all of the questions remained unanswered.

  “Everything all right up there?” Dakota asked from behind her. �
��You need to keep up, girl.”

  Instead of goosing Strawberry into a faster walk, Gracie reined her horse off to the side of the trail so Dakota could catch up. The trail was not so narrow or the trees so close as they climbed that they couldn’t ride side by side for a while.

  When Dakota caught up Gracie fell in beside her.

  “Nice day,” Gracie said.

  “Yes it is.” Dakota looked over with a hint of suspicion.

  “You do this a lot, right?” Gracie asked.

  “This is my third summer. So yeah, a lot of pack trips. Most of them are quite a bit shorter than this one, though. This is the big one of the year.”

  “How’d you meet Jed?” Gracie asked. “Are you two a couple?”

  Dakota smiled slyly. “Right to the point.”

  Gracie tried to smile back innocently.

  “I met him in Bozeman,” she said. “I was in my third year at the university and I was helping pay the bills by barrel-racing and riding horses for rich folks. There are quite a lot of rich people who’ve moved to Montana and they like the idea of owning horses but hardly any of ’em know a thing about them. But horses need to be ridden, and I put an ad in the Chronicle. Pretty soon, I was getting paid for going out to ranchettes and riding their horses for them to keep the animals in shape and to keep them well trained. Getting paid to ride horses is just about the coolest thing in the world, you know.”

  “That sounds pretty fun,” Gracie said.

  “So one of the ladies I worked for got divorced and decided to sell out and move back to L.A.,” Dakota said. “Jed bought all three of her horses. In fact, Strawberry there was one of them. So I delivered the horses to Jed at his place and we started talking and he offered me a job as wrangler. Seems his last guy wasn’t dependable. I started off as his wrangler and, well, you know. We were already spending a couple of months together day and night, so pretty soon we figured we might as well share the same tent, I guess.”

  “I sort of know what that’s like,” Gracie said. “I mean, Danielle is my sister.”