Antler Dust (The Allison Coil Mystery Series Book 1)

by Mark Stevens

  Back with Bear, she brushed off the snow that had accumulated on his saddle and climbed on. The entire world was turning white, except ...

  An elk.

  He was a fifty yards off the trail, maybe more. He was a beauty, judging by the sizable rack. She didn’t know how she’d missed it. She had been looking for a man, she reasoned. Prime elk did not lie down and die in the open.

  “Stay here, Bear,” she said and re-tied his rope. “You too, Eli.” Not that either animal had much choice. And Bear wouldn’t wander far if he got loose. He just didn’t.

  She walked down the slope, stepping carefully. Rocks wobbled and the fresh snow wasn’t good for traction. There was no need to check for signs of life. The antlers, about as large as she had ever seen up close, were like a miniature, smooth-boned forest. The fifth point was snapped, but the main beams were intact. The wound that had brought him down could be on the opposite side, underneath. She could see no trace of blood.

  She brushed snow off his hide, checked for a wound and cleaned his face. His eyes were open, mouth slightly ajar. This animal had not been dead for long.

  “Where the hell are your elk buddies?” she muttered. “Or your hunter?”

  The elk was much too big to have been dragged by one man, couldn’t have been dragged by two or three. The guy she had seen in her binoculars would know; there had to be a connection.

  She sat back from the elk’s head. Snow-coated Bear and Eli stood stock still on the trail, waiting. She imagined a scenario that might fit, but came up empty. She patted the elk’s haunch. It was remotely possible the elk’s killer would return with a team of helpers to quarter the animal. But it did not seem likely that anyone would be venturing back into the teeth of this storm. Here was a scene for the protesters to get sick over—the sheer destruction of an animal for no apparent purpose. The elk had not been tagged. He had been treated like garbage and he would rot. It was an utter waste and defied all the civilized rules that demarcated the line between hunt and slaughter.

  Allison stood up and pondered the scene one more time, estimated her distance and bearings from Lizard’s Tongue for future reference. She trudged back up the pitch, lungs burning a bit, and climbed back on Bear. The wind howled, as if to warn her she was running late. She tucked her blue bandana tightly up over her face and pulled down her hat. A few guides were starting to carry cell phones, but they only worked on certain high spots and that was one thing Allison liked about roaming the back country, not being constantly in touch, constantly available. If she had one now, however, she might be able to let someone know she would be running late.

  Very late.

  She gave Bear and Eli a cluck and they were off.

  Her bones ached, but so did her head, as she tried to put it all together in a way that made sense. Right now, nothing did.

  ****

  Two miles back down Ripplecreek, Grumley forced his mind to cover the issues and think about what happened. He had stepped out of routine, but a return to routine would be so much better without that jerk Carnivitas. It felt like it would snow for a week. Mother Nature was taking care of business.

  Carrying two rifles on foot had been distracting. His own rifle was now in his sling and Rocky’s dart gun was in his hands.

  The dead elk was a problem. Maybe he should have stayed to quarter the damn thing, but he didn’t have the tools. Hauling Rocky off had been exhausting enough. Rocky’s last act, as a dead weight, was one of his most cruel. Dead bodies handle about as well as a bag of wet sand.

  Grumley kept moving. His burly, muscled body was fashioned by years of rigorous hiking. He moved like a fullback, always ready to head-butt a moving truck. He wore the outdoors—nicks, scars and dings—on every scrap of his face. He would have to work on a story to tell the other three hunters. He needed to come up with a version of events to tell Applegate: a reason why he had skipped off without joining him on his hunt. Or his crusade. For Dean Applegate, the most unlucky and least talented hunter George Grumley had ever known, each trip out of the tent was a frightening cocktail of raw emotion mixed with zero stalking skill.

  Trudy kept flashing through his mind. He wondered what his wife knew about Rocky’s attempted extortion. In reality, Grumley figured, the whole thing was self-defense. More than likely Trudy had no idea Rocky would make the threats. There wasn’t a challenging bone in her body.

  A slight pounding in his temples told him it was time for a drink. Water searches would be impossible after dark; staying on the trail would be challenge enough in this storm.

  Grumley veered off the trail and picked his way through a tight stand of aspens to the streambed. He set his rifle and the dart gun against a tree, put his boot down through a few inches of fresh powder and pressed with all his weight on a layer of ice. It creaked for a few seconds and gave way. His boot landed in six inches of cold creek. Lying prone, Grumley dipped his lips in the water. He sucked slowly, steadily. It would be impossible to drink too much.

  “George?”

  Grumley flipped over like a cat on fire.

  Applegate stood ten paces away, waving both hands to show they were empty.

  “What the hell?”

  “It’s me.

  “You little—”

  “I spotted you back in here.”

  “Jesus H.”

  Grumley stood up. Applegate stepped closer, a fucking Gomer Crockett in head-to-toe catalog camouflage. He looked worried though. Applegate’s tentative posture and bug eyes suggested things were bad.

  “Have you been following me?” said Grumley.

  Applegate shivered badly. His jaw was not solidly connected to his head. The thin cotton parka would be okay for the mountains in July, but not in October.

  “I think I killed a guy,” said Applegate.

  “Think?”

  “It might be one of the protesters. It wasn’t another hunter, anyway, because he wasn’t carrying a gun. We gotta tell somebody.”

  “Where did this happen?”

  “Back up the valley. Not far.”

  “When?”

  Applegate looked around to the right and also to the left as if studying the aspen would help him remember. His face was a picture of fear. He was not thinking.

  “I don’t know. Twenty minutes, maybe thirty. I’ve been wandering around. I made it halfway back to camp, then wasn’t sure which way to go. I found the main trail here, sat awhile. Then I thought I’d try to find him again, the protester. I was thinking ... he might not be dead.”

  “You said you killed him.”

  “I know, I know. But he might be in shock. I didn’t really check. I didn’t feel for a pulse or anything. But he’s probably dead. He was there, draped in this brown thing. Like a cape, only bigger.”

  “Cape?”

  “Like a big piece of curtain or a blanket.”

  “Do you think you can find the way back to this guy?” said Grumley. “Sometimes it’s not so easy. Everything starts to look the same.”

  “I think so.” Applegate stood up.

  “Be sure so.”

  “I am.”

  Grumley stepped over to his rifle and the dart gun propped against the tree. He stood between them and Applegate, who surely had been too confused to notice he’d been carrying two guns. That might be a problem. No matter what Applegate was taking in and remembering, Grumley didn’t need the confusion, didn’t need a question from Applegate about two guns. Grumley gave Rocky’s dart gun a gentle tap with his foot and it fell silently into the snow, cutting its own grave.

  ****

  Applegate hunkered down for a moment as they were coming down the slope and held his palm above his eyes like a golfer shielding the sun to read the grain on a putt. But there was no sun, only steadily falling snow

  “There,” he said, pointing to a clump of buckthorn.

  The body was wrapped around the base of the bush, the windbreak sparing it from being buried by too much snow.

  “Aw, Christ,” said A
pplegate, keeping his distance and starting to sob.

  Grumley went to the body without hesitation and started brushing away snow and working to avoid disturbing the body.

  “If I was the coroner I would say he’s dead. What is this brown thing?”

  The brown cloth covering the corpse was like a large cape, neither shaped nor stitched like regular clothing.

  “Where did you shoot him?”

  “I was standing farther up the slope,” said Applegate. “Hundred yards or so.”

  “No, I mean where in the body?”

  “Christ, I don’t know. I thought it was a deer.”

  “I believe that’s what you were supposed to think.”

  The brown cape completely surrounded the body. Grumley found an arm and could feel the legs, but he wasn’t particularly keen on rolling the guy completely over to see much more.

  “We’ve gotta carry him out,” said Applegate. “And report it.”

  “You’re crazy,” said Grumley. “No cops, no nobody.”

  Applegate looked puzzled, said nothing.

  “Of course not,” said Grumley. “You’d be a fool. You’re the guy they want.”

  “They?”

  “The animal nuts. This dude was trying to get shot. Maybe not killed, but you did the trick. You’re looking at jail time, buddy. Negligent homicide. Manslaughter, I don’t know the right terms. It wouldn’t matter how much remorse you’d spew out.”

  Applegate swallowed a mouthful of fear.

  “This is the rifle you shot him with?” said Grumley. He studied Applegate’s Sako and its beautiful wood-grained craftsmanship.

  “Yeah.”

  “You gotta lose it.”

  “Lose?”

  “Give it to me,” said Grumley. “I’ll take care of it. If anybody asks, you put it down and you don’t remember where and you forgot about it. Lost it.”

  “Okay,” said Applegate.

  “If you walk out carrying this guy on your shoulders like a sack of potatoes, you’re looking at a media frenzy and your butt on the barbecue.”

  Grumley could not believe Applegate hadn’t simply disappeared on his own and pretended that nothing had ever happened.

  “If you admit to having done this, you’re going to drag yourself down and they’ll probably get me, too. We do not want that. Are you with me?”

  “Yeah.”

  Grumley took a step closer to Applegate.

  “I got too much to lose if my name is so much as whispered in connection with this. You’d be the dumb out-of-towner with the inability to distinguish a deer from a human and since you were part of my hunting party, I’d be fodder for the local mincemeat factory. This guy’s dead. Judging by the looks of things it’s what he wanted, for whatever crazy reason. A guy who dresses like a deer during hunting season is begging to get shot. You fucked up once, Applegate. You won’t do it twice. You gotta pretend it was a real bad dream.”

  “I suppose,” said Applegate. “But what about him, leave him here?”

  “Of course,” said Grumley, taking two steps closer so he was smack in Applegate’s face. “Now, listen to me. We’re going to walk back to the main trail. We’re going to hope the snow falls until Groundhog Day and covers every one of our goddamn tracks. We split up. You head down to safety. I’ll go back up to camp. You don’t have too far to go, maybe an hour or two at the most, depending on your pace. You never saw me.”

  “Okay,” said Applegate.

  “Can you make it okay? You’re gonna have to use your wits to stick to the main trail. At least it’s not snowing as hard down here as it is up on top.”

  “I will.”

  “You’ll get cleaned up and wait at the barn, right?”

  “Whatever.”

  “What happened to your rifle?” he said.

  “Lost and forgot,” said Applegate. “Right?”

  “Right.”

  Sending Applegate down alone carried huge risks. At the very least, he could have a tough time staying on the trail, given all the snow and the darkness. He might have a change of heart and blubber it all out to the first person he saw. But sending him down toward civilization would spare the weary guy a steep hike back up to the hunters’ camp.

  “Can you start a fire in the snow if you get lost?” Grumley said.

  “You showed me once.”

  “Can you do it now?”

  “I think so,” said Applegate.

  Grumley dug in an inside pocket for two packs of fire starter gel. “One should do it, but you’ve got a spare in case you screw up,” said Grumley. “Matches?”

  “Got those,” said Applegate.

  “Do you have any food?” said Grumley.

  “All gone.”

  Grumley eyed the body. Drinking water from the dead guy’s canteen was worth the risk. So was eating his food, or at least a portion. They could both use a bit of fuel. He had seen how thirsty Applegate was, too. Grumley dropped to his knees next to the body and began searching.

  “Aw, don’t,” said Applegate.

  “Why not?

  “Jesus,” said Applegate. “Leave him alone. I’ll make it.”

  “Got it,” said Grumley, wrapping his fingers around a bottle that sat in an inside pocket. It was one of those squeezable plastic bottles used by bicycle riders. Further buried in the body wrap, he found a sandwich-sized Tupperware container.

  “Bingo,” Grumley said.

  The water was cold but the dissipating heat from the body had kept it from icing up. Grumley figured there was a pint or so inside and passed it to Applegate.

  “Don’t get your lips on the plastic,” he said.

  The Tupperware held chunks of cheese and crackers. Everything was eaten in a minute. Grumley jammed the Tupperware back in with the body.

  Dead guy, Grumley thought. This was the day for dead guys. It was a total coincidence. Two fucked-up deals, no question, but more than anything it was important not to let one get tangled up with the other. And it was damn important to get out of this valley before anybody else spotted him, especially those idiot protesters.

  ****

  Over and over in her mind, Allison kept seeing the hunched form of the man struggling desperately with the load. The vision was shadow-like, but clear enough.

  An hour to go. Bear was eager and anxious; Eli toiled along like a worn-down soldier. Allison’s eyes widened and she took a bit of relief from the decreasing intensity of the snowfall.

  In a snowstorm, jet noise was even more pronounced, as if the roar was passed from one flake to the next. The blunt bawl from this jet had a deep, droning wah-wah quality to it. It was a distant reminder that jet traffic existed, a subliminal message from the world of technology. Next it was as if the jet was swooping along the treetops of Ripplecreek. The sound bounced down and around her and she glanced up, half expecting to catch a glimpse of a silver belly.

  She wondered if the jet was bound east or west—New York or L.A., Denver or Salt Lake City. Perhaps it was a short-hopper on the way into Grand Junction, the passengers lined up in neat rows, elbow to elbow, heads bouncing in unison like puppets all controlled by the same puppeteer, all rocketing along through the skies. Alcohol for the travelers, jet fuel for the engines and heaps of good faith to keep the whole thing aloft.

  At cruising speed, of course, the jet engines did not have the same straining quality they did at takeoff. Allison wondered if anybody realized how fast a plane was traveling on a runway before liftoff, or whatever they called it. Liftoff was for space shuttles and things like that. Planes took off. Whatever one called the means of getting airborne, it did not make a lick of difference when it came to human beings surrounded by hunks of metal rocketing through the thin air. Not all things that were supposed to go up managed to make it. Some flopped. Some nose-dived. Some came to a terrifying moment-of-truth—halfway earth-bound, gravity-happy, man-made structures that weighed thousands of tons, fancy-free mechanical things that used air, of all things, for power and o
pportunity. Allison had been on a jet that arrived at that moment and couldn’t make the transition. Gravity won, or flight lost: one of the two.

  Allison pictured a businessman sleeping in first class, an empty glass of sauvignon blanc on his dinner tray, a paperback thriller propped open on the synthetic blanket draped over his swollen gut. His mouth drooping slightly ajar, making the snoring even more irritating for his seatmate. Allison had been there, oblivious to the approaching danger.

  Two years now in the mountains and she was beginning— barely beginning—to consider the fact that she had been lucky. Another few seconds further up and the drop would have been an exponentially greater slam to reality. Another few seconds further up and 31 dead would have been 119 dead.

  Death, she had learned, is simply a corpse you carry around underneath your skin. Until one day it pops free.

  ****

  The snow caught the FATE followers off guard but not off their game. A few returned early to warm their hands by the bonfire at base camp, but most trickled back in small, elated bunches and the spirits of the camp began to soar.

  The ones returning were greeted with a wave of applause, some of it generated by bare palms and some of it generated by the soft, puffy, repetitive whomp of two mittens coming together. There were smiles all around. The two lame reporters were long gone, off to meet their deadlines or appointments in a bar.

  “People!” shouted Ellenberg over the general din. Everyone stopped immediately. “We’ve got a pot of vegetarian chili and corn muffins almost ready. If anyone thinks they don’t have enough warm blankets or clothes for the night, please let us know.”

  There was silence all around.

  “Good. Again, congratulations. Let’s sound off, to make sure.”

  “One,” said Ellenberg.

  “Two,” said a male voice across the fire. The count climbed quickly to fourteen.

  “Fifteen?” said Ellenberg. “Fifteen? Where is fifteen?”

  “He was behind me in line yesterday,” said a husky woman whose head poked out from a turquoise blanket. “Not a large guy at all, not much to him. He was struggling with the hike. Had trouble breathing. Didn’t seem all that comfortable.”

  Ellenberg remembered him all too well. He looked like a kid, hadn’t said much. He had stared at her from a seat near the front of the bus during the entire bus ride. He was the frail-looking one with the Red Sox cap. He could have been twenty-five; he could have been twelve. What she had seen of his scalp was hairless. His nose was a button and his cheeks were puffed hard, pink and frail. On the hike in, he had sputtered and coughed much more than the others and she had asked him directly if he was going to be able to make it. The answer was “yes” and the smile that went with it said don’t worry.