Blood Lure

by Nevada Barr

  Teethmarks. Anna remembered her dream of padding paws and dog breath. A bear then, not a dream. A bear had brought her water to drink. Savoring the fairy-tale image while the unreality of it made her head swim, Anna watched her hand reach for the water, her fingers curl around the cold plastic. She popped open the nipple and drank.

  If it was poisoned, so be it. She wouldn't have missed the spurious magic of the moment for the promise of ten lifetimes.

  18

  Because she was truly thirsty, Anna could follow the water down her throat, feel it spread out in her stomach, soak through the walls, thin her blood and plump up her skin. Not a trace of poison anywhere. No one, nothing, sprang from the woods to strike her down as she drank. The water was a gift, not a trap, and she was as grateful as she was mystified.

  The body satisfied, the mind was able to expand its focus past where the next drink was coming from. Carrying the bottle, empty now but far too interesting with its puncture marks to be left behind, she moved partly to get the blood flowing and because, gift or no gift, she did not want to linger in a place she'd been found out.

  Walking slowly into the trees, where morning's light had not yet cleared away the shadows, she put together a rudimentary plan. Had the water not made its miraculous appearance, she would have headed down toward camps and creeks immediately. Given a short reprieve, she needed to go back to where she'd left her pack. Not to find, capture or confront evil-doers, she promised herself, but to look without being seen and to get her stuff back, including the 35-mm camera with film containing pictures of her attacker's bootprints. Or Gunga Din's bootprints. Could the roller of the rock and the bringer of water be one and the same? It made even less sense than Anna's image of a beneficent bruin carrying her water bottle in its kindly jaws.

  Taking her time, moving with an ear to her own footfalls and an eye to keeping trees or rocks between her and the ridge where the pack had been left, she walked in a long ellipse so she would come upon the place from the north and above. This time she would be the stalker.

  Movement and the return of the sun restored her equilibrium. Hunger, burning lightly in her middle, was a pleasant companion, reminding her she was alive and had much to look forward to. Within thirty minutes she had wended her surreptitious way back to where her reckless sprint had begun the evening before. Above and to the right of the den's—if it was in fact a den—entrance she made herself comfortable, her back to a green and gold boulder rapidly warming in the sun. The branches of two pines, tangled like ancient lovers fighting, created a pierced screen between her and the world.

  A woman in purdah, Anna watched in security. She even began to enjoy herself as befitted a person given a front-row seat in a crown jewel park. Her pack was not where she'd dumped it, but ten or fifteen feet away. The sleeping bag had been pulled off, unrolled and thrown aside. The pack itself was open and the contents spilled out. From this distance she couldn't tell what was missing. It occurred to her that the camera—or at least the exposed film—would be taken or destroyed. Probably her radio would have suffered a like fate. She hoped her notes had been overlooked.

  The boulder that had been pushed down toward her had come to rest below the pack, maybe six yards. Beneath its bulk poked the crushed arms of a small tree. From her elevated vantage point it wasn't hard to see the tree branches as the scaly withered arms and legs of a flattened witch. Anna let the Wizard of Oz take over and, in her imagination, saw the witch's legs shrivel and vanish beneath the fallen house.

  The mind game shifted and she saw herself beneath the rock. Her own life crushed, her own legs and arms made sere and dry. That, after all, was what had been intended. She thought about that for a while. It hurt her feelings and offended her delicate sensibilities but, sequestered in the warmth of the sun, safe from prying eyes, she wasn't afraid. The rock and the tree milked for all the drama they had to offer, her thoughts moved on.

  The brush that had been banked against the bottom of the rocky outcrop, partially obscuring the slot in the stones, had been dragged away. The opening was considerably larger than she'd imagined, several feet high and eight or ten feet wide, tapering down at either end. A nice place to pass the winter or hide out from the law.

  Since it was not near denning time Anna had given little thought to disturbing a bear inside. Now she thought of the mother and cubs she'd seen the day before and wished she knew more about the habits of the grizzly. Did they use their dens in summer? Take naps there? Water the plants? Dust? She seemed to remember that, given the choice, a bear would return to the same place to den winter after winter but adapted fairly easily if the den were made uninhabitable by some natural disaster: flood, avalanche, ski resort.

  Snug on her hillside, the thought of bears in residence did little more than delay her slide and scramble down a few minutes more. Her long watch was for two-legged animals. An hour passed. Anna neither heard, saw, smelled nor sensed anything to suggest that she was not alone.

  One of the items tumbled from her abandoned pack was a one-liter wide-mouth plastic water bottle. With the mountainside warming, Anna took a greater and greater interest in it.

  She was too old or too crusty to pass for Snow White or Rose Red. She could not expect a bear to bring her a beverage a second time.

  Shortly after nine-thirty, convinced there was no one near and grown significantly thirsty again, she left her secluded niche and worked her way as quietly as she could on the sliding scree to the gash beneath the rocky overhang. There she waited once more. No sounds from within. No cool exhalation that she'd come to expect out of the mouths of big caves. This, then, was what it looked like; a shallow grotto beneath the rock. Still, she skirted it respectfully, careful her shadow did not fall across the mouth, and went to her pack.

  The camera was there, though the film, both exposed and unused, was gone. The NPS radio Ruick had issued her was gone. Her flashlight had been smashed. The greatest disappointment was the water bottle she'd packed in. It was undamaged but the contents had been poured out. Her portable water filter was missing. All the evidence envelopes were gone. Her notebook had been left but the pages with writing on them had been ripped out and taken. Near as she could tell, everything else had been ignored: map, underwear, socks, pens remained.

  Whoever had messed with it had cared only that she go away and go away with no record of the things she'd seen. The items taken or destroyed decreed she must hike out and soon.

  Why empty this water bottle, steal the filter, then go to the trouble of tracking her down to leave a gift of water outside her hiding place? Why try to kill her with rock and gun, then let her sleep unharmed through the night? Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde? Or, like the werewolf, kind and humane by day, ravening beast by night?

  Moving quickly, not allowing herself to mourn the loss of the water, she stuffed the goods, including the sleeping bag, willy-nilly into the main compartment of the pack.

  Having finished, she turned her attention to the den. During her musings and stuffings she'd never once turned her back on it. Without the flashlight, she was even less anxious to go poking into its shadows than she had been before. But there was nothing for it. Either she looked as best she could or the inspection was put off a minimum of twenty-four hours while she hiked out and made her report.

  Approaching the gash from the side, she went down on one knee in the runner's starting position in case a tactical retreat became suddenly necessary. In her right hand she held the can of bear spray she wore at her belt. The stuff was made mostly of pepper. She knew for a fact it worked on people. She had only the manufacturer's word that it worked on bears.

  The sun was not yet overhead. Far from shining helpfully into the cave's mouth, it cast a black shadow there. Anna scooched down slightly and thrust her face in under the overhang, listening, sniffing, letting her eyes adjust to the gloom. Her nose processed the most information. The smells were many, mixed and strange. Underlying them was the familiar smell of rock and damp in otherwise dry country.
Probably one or more seep springs had gone into the making of the cave, though Anna knew better than to hope for any open water. The lesser smells, the newer smells, were what intrigued her. A trace of gas was in the air. Butane maybe. Kerosene, wax, maybe. Perhaps she smelled not the gas itself but the odors left from heated metal, extinguished wicks. Someone had been staying here for a night or more. Someone who'd been willing to smash her to defend his territory.

  Though the morning proved quiet, memory of the boulder reminded her not to dawdle. Her guess was the roller of rocks and filleter of faces had moved on after using the time she'd cowered in her crevice to clean all trace of himself out of the cave. Still, he might return. To kill her, if for no better reason.

  She sniffed again. Traces of human food, certainly, but something more. The odor was exceedingly familiar but she couldn't place it; sweetish. Hay? Dustier, flatter. Anna gave up. Her eyes had adjusted. The cave was much as she'd expected it would be, shallow and uncomplicated, a shell-shaped cut in the mountain with no passages or rooms. At its maximum it was four feet from floor to ceiling. Using the half-light from outside she did a quick search. On one narrow ledge she found candle wax. That was all. The cave had not only been cleared, it had been swept. Looking back toward the crescent of pale light filtering in, she could see the marks of her own passage crossing a field swept into tiny ridges by a pine-needle broom.

  Combing the tidy dirt on the floor she came up with half a peanut, a dime and a piece of what looked like dog biscuit. She sniffed it and found the source of the mysterious sweetish, hay-like, dusty, flat odor. Anna was shocked and then laughed aloud and scared herself with her own noise. Why would she be appalled that a person who would commit murder would have the unmitigated gall to bring a dog into a National Park Service-designated Wilderness Area? If they ever caught him, in addition to "murder in the first degree," she'd make sure Harry wrote him up for "dog off leash."

  Evidence bags had been stolen along with film, radio, water and notes. Anna carefully buttoned the peanut, the dime and the dog biscuit into her shirt pocket. She was determined not to return from Cathedral Peak with nothing to show for herself.

  It took over three hours to get back to Highline Trail. Knowing she had no water made Anna far thirstier than she would have been otherwise. Knowledge she was in no danger of actually dying before she got to Fifty Mountain Camp, where she would undoubtedly find at least one camper willing to lend her a filter pump, did nothing to alleviate her discomfort. So much for mind over matter.

  On Highline she had the good luck to meet up with two women who'd hiked in from Going to the Sun Road. For the first time in her life, Anna wished she'd had children so she could trade her firstborn for a drink. The hikers didn't drive quite so hard a bargain and were glad to have the privilege of rescuing a ranger.

  "Drink as much as you like," a hippy blond with wonderful eyes and badly sunburned cheeks said. "We'll top off at the next creek."

  Anna took her up on the invitation and, thirst slaked, fell in with them as they hiked downhill toward Flattop. The women were good company. Both were from Oberlin, Ohio. Every year for seven years they backpacked together in a different national park. They collected stories, they told her, stories and pictures. On winter solstice they held a remembrance party and relived their adventures of past years.

  "Now we've got you," the blond said, and Anna had to submit with apparent good grace—they had given her water after all—to having her picture taken, the better to illustrate what would probably be entitled "The Idiot Lady Ranger" story.

  "Two good stories today," the other woman said. Emma or Ella— Anna had been too busy swallowing when introductions were made to hear properly. She was the older of the two, in her thirties, with inky black hair cut short like a man's. One nostril was pierced and she wore a tiny diamond there that flashed in the sun when she talked. "A while ago we stopped for lunch. We like to get off trail. You know, not just a few feet but half a mile or so, so we can really be here," she told Anna, the diamond winking conspiratorially. "We were pushing down through some brush to what looked like kind of a nice little clearing with a terrific view. We get there and there's this boy. Just this boy all by himself out on this rocky ledge and he's just sitting there crying his eyes out. Bawling. How weird."

  "There's a story right there," the blond said happily. "I mean, I'm sorry he was crying. He seemed like a sweet guy, but you've got to admit it's got 'story' written all over it."

  "No picture though," the possibly-Emma woman said.

  "Maybe he was ashamed." Anna was still feeling mildly humiliated at her own story potential.

  "Oh, we didn't shove the camera in his weepy little face like some demented newswomen," the blond said. "We believe in leaving no trace, not even footprints."

  "Especially on people's faces," the other woman threw in and laughed, a boisterous, barroom laugh that tickled Anna. "He was really an unhappy citizen. We tried to talk with him but he wasn't much for that. He dried up the minute we showed. Real sweet fella."

  "Till the camera came out. Then he became Mr. Freaky."

  The story was beginning to interest Anna. "What did he look like?" she asked.

  "Around five-ten. Young, exceedingly young. Too young to be out without his momma. He couldn't have been more than fifteen or sixteen, tops. What do the you think, Emma? Fifteen?"

  "Thereabouts," Emma concurred.

  "Soft, soft brown hair. Some wave. Big old hazel eyes with lashes out to here." The blond held a stubby forefinger adorned with chipped burgundy polish a couple of inches beyond her nose.

  "Boxy jaw," Emma said. "Square guy. Not fat, square. Looked strong."

  It was about the best description of a person Anna had ever gotten in her years as a law enforcement officer. These women were of that rare breed that saw what they were looking at.

  She compared the description with her memory and decided they had seen the elusive Geoffrey Mickelson-Nicholson.

  "Did he wear a length of chain wrapped around his waist and have a smile like St. Francis of Assisi?" Anna asked.

  "I was getting to that," Emma said, in the injured tone of a raconteur whose flow is interrupted.

  "Do you know him?" the blond asked.

  "I've met him," Anna said.

  "Do you know why he was crying? He wouldn't tell us."

  Anna didn't. It crossed her mind that his heart was broken because the boulder he'd rolled down the mountainside had failed to squash her, but she didn't say so. The stories she collected weren't the kind that made for good memories on a deep winter's night.

  "How long ago?" Anna asked.

  "Maybe an hour," Emma said.

  Too much time had passed to follow him on foot. Anna needed film, a weapon, a horse, water and a much better plan. She continued on to Fifty Mountain Camp with the ladies from Ohio.

  19

  Fifty Mountain was at peace, new campers not yet come, old campers either out exploring or lounging in the church-quiet of backcountry camp at midafternoon.

  Anna went first to Ponce. He'd been fed by one of Ruick's crew the night before, as they'd arranged if Anna spent the night out. The bay was utterly content to be doing nothing and gave her a big-hearted welcome that left horse snot down her right arm from shoulder to elbow. Given the sad shape of her uniform shirt, a smear of equine mucus was a mere drop in the bucket.

  Beyond the hitching rail, the National Park Service had provided a tall pole firmly planted in the ground with metal hooks near the top. Propped against a nearby tree was another pole. This one was long and slender and tipped with a hook of its own. Taking up the slender pole, Anna used it to lift off the pack she'd left behind, cached high and safe. The NPS put these primitive instruments at the heavily used camps. Caching food in trees, done repeatedly and inexpertly, not only damaged the trees over time but, too frequently, resulted in the bears getting the goods anyway. Bears learned quickly, remembered and, rare among wild creatures, passed that knowledge on to their youn
g. Bears were as good as rangers at spotting a cache that, with a little effort, could be had.

  Food, a sponge bath, cleaner clothes, resting in a tent; Anna enjoyed the things that allowed people to maintain the thin veneer of civilization. Without a radio there was little else she could do but while away the time till she got word from Ruick. As was customary when one ranger went off alone in questionable pursuits, she'd been instructed to report in each evening. Since she'd failed to do so, Ruick would be looking for her. It behooved her to stay put so she could be found.

  Renewed and rested, she ventured forth a little after five. She wandered by McCaskil's campsite. A young couple were pitching their tent there, arguing companionably about which direction the slope went. McCaskil wouldn't be back, not unless he was an idiot. He'd run. He had a radio, Anna was sure of it. Either that or he'd fortuitously overheard their conversation regarding him over Lester Van Slyke's radio. Not impossible in a town built of cloth.

  If he had any sense, he was long gone from the park by now. Unless he had unfinished business here, and Anna couldn't imagine what it would be. Rolling rocks down on her? That made little sense. Anna couldn't tie McCaskil in with the excavating for moths or digging glacier lilies and she knew it wasn't he who'd dwelt in the den she'd found. He'd spent every night but one at Fifty Mountain.

  She could connect McCaskil with Carolyn by way of the map and the coat. She could connect Carolyn and the blue stuff bag by way of blood and proximity. The mysterious Geoffrey Mickleson-Nicholson she connected to the blue stuff bag by way of the moths and the glacier lilies. So far she couldn't connect Geoffrey with Carolyn except through the blue stuff sack. Who the hell was the boy with the chain around his waist who wept and dug and, Anna believed, denned up in the high country like an out-of-season bear?