The Serpents Trail
Page 1
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Acknowledgements
Dedication
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Teaser chapter
Praise for The Serpents Trail . . .
“Devotees of Henry’s Alaska mysteries will be delighted to see sixty-three-year-old Maxie McNabb, the Winnebago-driving, free-spirited widow introduced in Dead North, starring in this gentle whodunit. . . . Cozy crime fans . . . will love to live vicariously through Maxie and Stretch in what promises to be a long and popular run of adventures.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Another winner. . . . A fine series debut.”
—Booklist
. . . and the “wonderfully evocative”1 Jessie Arnold series
“Twice as vivid as Michener’s natural Alaska, at about a thousandth the length.”
—The Washington Post Book World
“The twists and turns keep you turning the pages . . . a thoroughly good read.”
—The Denver Post
“Henry revels in the wilderness of Alaskan scenery and keeps the tension mounting. . . . A fine adventure.”
—The Cleveland Plain Dealer
“This fast-paced page-turner will make the miles fly during any trip.”
—Boston Herald
“[Henry’s] descriptions of Alaska’s wilderness make you want to take the next flight out, buy heavy sweaters, or at least curl up with an afghan, a cup of steaming hot chocolate, and the book.”
—The Phoenix Gazette
“[Her] grasp of tense storytelling and strong characterization matches her with Sue Grafton. Give her a try—she’ll challenge your powers of perception and deduction.”
—The Colorado Springs Gazette
“Sue Henry is an agile writer . . . hard to put down.”
—The Charleston Post and Courier
ONYX
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First Onyx Printing, March 2005
Copyright © Sue Henry
All rights reserved
Map and author photo by Eric Henry at Art Forge Unlimited
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
With sincere thanks to:
The people of Grand Junction, Colorado, who were so generous with their expertise, guidance, and hospitality, both long distance and in my visits to that fascinating area
Especially to:
Henrietta Hay—friend, mystery fan, and sports-car-driving liberal in a conservative town—whose weekly column in the local Daily Sentinel is its most popular feature. Happy ninetieth, Henrietta
The National Park Service at the Colorado National Monument, Superintendent Palma Wilson, and Ranger Todd Overbye
The Grand Junction Visitor and Convention Bureau
The Grand Junction Area Chamber of Commerce
Joe and Ellen Hopkins for their kind hospitality
Also to:
Claire Carmichael McNab, my expert on all things Aussie
My brother John Hall, the family geologist
My son Eric Henry of Art Forge Unlimited for the author photo and map
Maxye Henry of Motor Home Magazine
Fran Connors, Recreation Vehicle Industry Association
A&M RV Center, Anchorage, Alaska
High Country Gardens of Santa Fe, New Mexico, for information on plants for western gardens
For J. A. Jance,
who took the time to listen,
and encouraged the creation of this series
And for all the readers of Dead North,
who asked me to give
Maxie McNabb and her mini-dachshund, Stretch,
a book of their own
CHAPTER ONE
A PARTIALLY OPEN DOOR ALWAYS HAS A QUESTION IN IT.
At the end of a four-thousand-mile road trip, I stood on the back porch of Sarah Nunamaker’s large Victorian house in the center of Grand Junction, Colorado, uneasily considering the half-open door that swung ever so slightly as the curious fingers of a dying breeze reached in under the sheltering roof to give it a tentative nudge. After robust and extended use of the heavy brass knocker on the front door had resulted in nothing but echoes and silence from within, I had made my way through a side garden and around to the backyard, glancing up at each window that I passed for evidence of occupation within. At well after eight o’clock in the dark of the mid-September evening, all of them showed nothing but the mottled reflection of a streetlight that filtered in between the curbside trees. Only one, a rear second-story pane, held a soft hint of illumination that crept through the lace curtains of a room I knew from past visits
was Sarah’s bedroom.
The discovery of the partially open back door had me frowning in concern as I considered the situation. I knew that my arrival had been anticipated, so something was wrong. Had there been an unpredicted turn for the worse in Sarah’s condition? Had she been transported to the local hospital? It would explain why there was no one to respond to my summons at the front door. The light that was barely visible in that upper room could have been left on in the rush that resulted from a medical emergency. But why that light and no other?
And why an open door if no one was at home?
It was later than I had expected to arrive in Grand Junction. But as I had driven the last few miles into town a late summer storm had swept in with a ferocity of wind, thunder, and lightning that had sent pedestrians lunging into doorways and dashing under trees for shelter from an unanticipated barrage of hail that preceded the tempest’s primary thrust. For a few menacing minutes pearls of ice had rattled and rebounded from pavements and roofs before rolling into gutters where they were swirled away into storm drains by the five minutes of torrential rain that followed before they could melt. The sudden elemental assault had forced me to pull my Winnebago motor home off the road and wait it out. The clatter of hail playing the roof like a snare drum had roused my mini-dachshund, Stretch, from his nap in a basket that hung from the front of the passenger seat’s backrest and set him barking defensively at the threat he couldn’t identify.
“Cool it, you silly galah,” I told him, reaching across to lay a calming hand on his head. “It’s only noise that can’t hurt us.”
Even when caught out in one, I have always enjoyed the energy and abrupt force and crash of thunderstorms, which are not common where I live in Alaska. They are like grand music, with kettledrums and cymbals within a string and woodwind orchestra of falling, splashing water. My favorite exhibitions are the ones that occur at night, with lightning hurled like fireworks from the sky, immediately followed by the thunder’s growl, exciting and stimulating to the senses.
This storm was not without welcome as it cooled and added humidity to the hot, dry air. The last few days of travel through Idaho, Utah, and finally into western Colorado had been warmer than I was used to in the far north, or had expected in the Lower 48 this late in the summer. Though the Winnebago has efficient air-conditioning, I hate the feeling of being sealed inside a box of any kind, moving or otherwise. I can’t escape the feeling that eventually I may breathe all the oxygen out of the air and wind up gasping like a fish out of water. I feel the same way about hotels with unopenable windows, and avoid them if possible. So, I had dressed in a cool sleeveless blouse and my denim traveling skirt, and let the warm air blow in through open windows most of the time as we approached the high desert of the Colorado Plateau through Utah.
Over as abruptly as it had begun, in fifteen minutes the storm had moved away and the wind had died to a zephyr, leaving water gurgling down drains and the leaves and branches of trees bent with the weight of leftover rain they were shedding. The scent of ozone faded and that of damp vegetation and the rain evaporating from hot pavement drifted in as I made my way through half-remembered streets, finally locating Sarah’s familiar address on Chipeta Avenue, a block south of Gunnison, in the center of town.
I was tired after the long trip. Still it had taken less time than usual for me to drive the highway from Alaska to Colorado, because most days I had traveled farther than normal by spending longer hours on the road. On other trips down the Alaska Highway I had taken my time, stopping to enjoy visits to favorite places and people along the way. It is a journey of spectacular scenery in which I always take pleasure, and had done on this trip, though I had skipped several of my customary intermissions—a soak in Liard Hot Springs, an overnight with friends at Dawson Peaks Resort in Teslin, an always fascinating visit to the Jasper Rock Shop, a stop at the carousel by the riverbank in Missoula. In leaving Alaska, however, I had indulged myself a little by taking a favorite cutoff, rather than traveling straight down the Alaska Highway to the Canadian border crossing.
Eleven days earlier, before entering Canada, I had stood beside my thirty-foot Minnie Winnie motor home and gazed west into my home state from a turn-out at the highest point on the Top of the World Highway between Alaska and Dawson City in the Yukon Territory, 4,515 feet above sea level. Looking back across a hundred miles of ridge after purple-blue ridge of mountains that form the Alaska Range, I had wondered how long it would be before I would see them again.
My hair is thick and dark brown, with more and more silver each year. I wear it long enough to use a clip to fasten it high on the back of my head in a kind of twist that keeps it off my neck. As I stood there and appreciated the incredible view, the wind tugged several strands loose and blew them across my face. Noticing that silver, for a moment or two I wondered if it was still a good idea, at sixty-three years old, to be leaving all that was familiar and safe to take to the road again. I couldn’t help smiling, however, as the satisfaction of pleasing no one but myself replaced the momentary hesitation. My smile widened and I felt like a child running away from home with an extra-large satchel full of all her favorite toys and snacks.
I love to drive, and there aren’t that many roads in Alaska, where we climb into airplanes the way most of the world drives or catches a bus. It was, as ever, exhilarating to be traveling again, though my destination was more specific and less carefree than usual.
My short-legged mini-dachshund companion had trotted off to explore the rocks and weeds around the edge of the turnoff, his ears flapping slightly in the wind. He ignored my first “Come along, Stretch.” Glad to be free of his leash, he asserted the independence of his breed by pretending he hadn’t heard me and trotted a bit farther away.
“Come here, you,” I told him firmly, taking a step in his direction. “Time to go if we want to get across the Yukon before the ferry stops running. I want dinner tonight in Dawson City—one I don’t have to cook for myself.”
He cocked his head to look back and make sure I was serious, then came padding back cheerfully enough and allowed himself to be lifted into the motor home and deposited in his padded basket. It raises him up for a comfortable view of the passing scenery, which he loves, so he immediately scrambled up to put his front feet on the edge, ready for whatever was coming next.
I hesitated long enough to move the hands of my watch an hour ahead, remembering that the time changes as you cross into Canada, then put the Winnebago in gear and drove back onto the well-maintained gravel width of the Top of the World. I made a quick stop a few minutes later at the border, to assure the friendly customs agent that I carried no contraband and would be passing straight through parts of Yukon Territory, British Columbia, and Alberta on my way down to the Old Country, as I at times refer to the forty-eight contiguous United States.
Crossing international borders always makes me cross my fingers as I tell one falsehood that would probably show up as a significant spike in a lie-detector test. When I bought the Winnebago and knew I would be once again traveling alone, I hired a trusted neighbor to build a secret sliding panel over a hidey-hole large enough to stash a shotgun with extra shells. This is definitely illegal if it is not declared, but as it makes me feel safer and, since it isn’t a handgun, I commit the sin of omission with as innocent a smile as I can muster. They would have a devil of a time finding it, even if they knew it was somewhere aboard. Besides, who’s going to search the motor home of a sixty-three-year-old grand-mother anyway?
Just knowing that shotgun is there if I need it has made me feel better about flitting around by myself the last few years. Where you could miss more easily with a handgun, or have it taken from you, it seems to me that anyone bent on a break-in or assault should be rightfully reluctant to challenge an alarmed female senior citizen holding a shotgun in her unsteady hands. So, I showed the agent my passport with all five of my names on it—Nora Maxine Stillman Flanagan McNabb, which always makes them smile—and he, unsuspecti
ng, waved us cheerfully across into Canada.
Though the journey would not be a leisurely one, and this side trip would take a bit longer than the usual Alaska Highway to Whitehorse route, where the two roads come together, I was glad that I had taken it, especially on such a clear day. It had let me take a departing look at a breathtaking part of the state that I love and will always return to, sooner or later.
The reason for my making the trip without unwarranted delay was a promise my old and dear friend, Sarah Nunamaker, and I had made long ago to always be there for each other. When Sarah, now terminally ill with a heart condition, had phoned and reminded me of that agreement, I had offered to fly there immediately. She had assured me it was not necessary—that I should bring the motor home in which I intended to spend the winter in New Mexico. I was relieved that there would be enough time to settle my mind about her approaching death before arriving, for highway travel always calms and revitalizes me. Concern had kept me heading steadily south, knowing time was limited and would sadly be less than either of us wished, and shorter for every day it took me to arrive.
“The doctors have promised me at least a couple of months, dear,” she had told me. “Just come as soon as you safely can in that rolling house, and don’t take chances. I’ll be—fine until you get here.”
Her tone had faltered on the last sentence and I, knowing her well, had sensed an odd hesitation in the assertion.
“What’s wrong, Sarah? You might as well tell me.”
There had been a significant silence from the other end of the line before she spoke again. I had waited it out with an uneasy feeling.