The River Wild

by Denis O'Neill

  “You could,” the lieutenant said, “but if those sons of bitches see or hear a chopper, you’d be looking at a family with a diminished life expectancy. Not that they’re gonna let them go anyway.”

  “You know these guys?” Littlebuck asked.

  Bobby Long looked haunted. “Yeah, I know one of them.” Billy Heston took note of the lieutenant’s demeanor; he had never seen him stone-faced like this.

  The ranger pointed to the cliffs just above the takeout. “There’s a fire road into here. Piece of cake for four-wheel drive. But getting down those cliffs would be something else.”

  Long gave that some thought. “If you can get me in there,” he said, determined, “I’ll round up some men who’ll get down.”

  “Sir?” Billy Heston bravely ventured another suggestion. “You might want some sort of disguises.”

  “Such as?”

  “Fishing stuff?”

  Long looked at Heston in a new light. “I’ll buy that,” he said. “We’ll need the help of a fishing shop.”

  “It’s midnight sir, and Sunday, to boot.”

  “Trooper, I don’t give a flying fuck if it’s Christmas and St. Patty’s Day rolled into one. Get someone up, and get one of those shops open.”

  Billy Heston said, “No problem, sir.”

  He stood there for the longest moment, as if that was that. The lieutenant gave him a look. “No time like the present.”

  “Yes, sir.” Billy started for the door. “Trooper, I also want you to ask around the fishing shops and see what anyone remembers about a guide named Gail Anderson. Dig up as much background as you can, wherever you can. Do that Google shit, too.”

  “Yes sir,” Billy said, “I’ll do the Google shit.”

  The lieutenant turned once more, to study the map. His gut was talking to him.

  ** ** **

  Billy Heston’s fingers flew over his computer keyboard. Maybe all the stupid video games and “computer bullshit” his father always harped on when Billy was trying to survive Montana winters had an upside after all. “Montana Outfitters, Great FallsArea,” turned up six company names and numbers. He was ready for some after hours “if this is an emergency” phone numbers and calls.

  ** ** **

  In his office, Bobby Long was working the phones. “Jared, it’s Bobby. Yes, I know what time it is. Time for you to get your ass to the mother ship. We got a bead on the bad guys. Round up the boys. Full tactical gear. Zero dark thirty.” He hung up and sat back in his chair. He flashed on the police photograph of his wife’s best friend and maid of honor, Mary Walsh, eyes wide, neck broken. He sat still for the longest time, visibly haunted.

  ** ** **

  The web site for Montana Troutfitters popped up on the screen. Billy Heston bypassed the “grip and grin” snaps of happy clients holding trout and down to the list of company guides. He hurried past the younger ones and wrote down the names of the older guides. He did the same for three more fishing outfitters, then started dialing.

  24

  Gail and Deke faced each other across the fire, captive and captor, looking every bit the chess players they were—silently plotting their next moves, trying to think a move or two ahead. Gail’s hands were bound.

  “I need to pee,” Gail said.

  Deke got up and untied her. “Roarke says you got two minutes.”

  Gail headed for the woods between the campsite and the rafts.

  She looked back when she was far enough in to be unseen. The fire was an orange blur. She pulled out a spool of monofilament fishing leader from her shirt pocket. She glanced around, her eyes darting from tree to tree, searching, searching, settling finally on two saplings three feet apart. A splintered tree stump with a nasty jagged tip formed the third point of a triangle, half a body length away from the trees. Gail crouched down and tied the open end of the line to one of the saplings, shin high, then looped the spool around the other tree, shin high, repeated the process two more times to strengthen the bridging linkage, and wove the last length around the six strands to bundle them together.

  Deke’s voice reached her, “Ten-second warning! Nine … eight … ”

  Gail quickly bit off the monofilament and worked to secure it to one of the trees. Her guide’s hands remembered their old dexterity, working furiously and efficiently to tie off the line as she had so many clients’ flies.

  ** ** *

  A mile downriver, Tom ran through the woods at the rim of the canyon. He would gauge his path and make hay when the moon was exposed, slow down when cloud cover dimmed the light. He wasn’t sure where he was going, except downriver … where everyone he cared about was headed. He paused every now and then when a vista opened to peer into the distance, hoping to see a possible way down to the river’s edge. A place where he could fashion a rescue or ambush of some kind. Those details would have to wait. First he needed a site and a way to it.

  He scrambled up a gentle, pine needle–covered slope and paused at the top to assess the short leap to the ground below. Not bad. He jumped and landed softly in a bed of needles. He stood to brush off his palms and chart the next leg forward. He heard a low growl. Spooked, Tom turned to see a grizzly sow surge out of the cavern formed by the underside of the slope. The bear charged closer, then reared back on hind legs, fangs bared, saliva dripping from her gums. She clawed the air with her paws, hissed and roared. Tom screamed and threw up a protective forearm. He instinctively staggered backward. The bear scrambled even closer, slashing her paws through the night air, inch-long claws looking like talons—black against cinnamon-colored paws. Tom stumbled away. His heel hit a rock and down he went in a heap. The bear reared up directly above his prostrate form, snorting and hissing, the gobs of saliva now dripping from her jaw like live stalagmites. Tom could smell her putrid breath. A snarling, golden blur hurtled out of the darkness from the side. Maggie slammed into the bear, grabbing a mouthful of coarse fur from the sow’s throat. The dog’s momentum knocked both creatures to the ground. The unexpected attack startled the sow more than anything. Maggie tumbled free when they both hit the ground. She pounced to her feet and confronted the bear head on, barking as ferociously as a golden retriever could. The bear scrambled to all fours and kind of backed up to assess the situation. A new adversary changed her thinking, especially since her goal was to protect her young cubs, who now wandered out of darkness and head-bumped her backside. The sow turned on the cubs and sent them scrambling backward with a hiss threatening punishment.

  Tom took the opportunity to roll further away from the bear and scramble to higher ground. Maggie continued to bewilder the bear with her barking and feints. The sow finally had enough. She rose up on her haunches and made herself as tall as she could. She roared and hissed again and sliced her paws through the air. Maggie sensed her work there was done. She bolted.

  Tom, meantime, had scrambled to the top of the next knoll downriver. “Maggie!! Come on, girl!”

  The bear took a couple of steps toward the departing dog, then stood a final time. Tom had no doubt she would kill them both if they didn’t disappear and stop threatening her offspring.

  When Maggie bounded up to him, Tom draped an arm over her neck, then stood and started running. The sow retreated to the shelter of her cavern.

  Tom ran until he thought it was safe to stop in an opening on the canyon rim. He sank to his knees to catch his breath and hug his dog. Maggie slobbered him with licks and kisses, squirming in his arms. Tom buried his head in Maggie’s fur. At last, an ally. The reunion was joyful, if brief. Tom knew he had to hurry and find a way down to the river’s edge; time was short. But, as far as he could see, on his side of the river there were only the vertical plates of canyon walls.

  ** ** **

  And so, when the near-full moon splashed enough light through the pine trees to safely read the terrain, he began running again. At full wattage, the moon was bright enough to cast shadows. In places where the forest thickened, he veered back toward the canyon rim, wher
e tree growth was usually less because the winter winds howled over the edge and blew away topsoil, leaving little nourishment. Maggie ran with him; each was happy for the other’s company. In time, Tom found a rhythm he remembered as a kid, running with his springer spaniel after school in the woods behind his house in Connecticut. Only where the trees grew close together did he have to slow to a walk and skip through the clutter of trunks that were packed, in places, as tightly as a fistful of pick-up sticks.

  Tom returned to the canyon rim at intervals to check his progress and gauge where he had to go. He figured the likeliest place to find a way down was somewhere below the rapids at Indian Gorge, the place Gail had talked about. He knew that was the last tricky run before the takeout. It would be his best shot at some sort of ambush or rescue. He checked the cloud cover as often as the river. The combination of low light and dense tree growth made for the worst progress; full moon and open, wavelike undulations of granite allowed him to make good time.

  He paused at an open bluff to catch his breath. The moon, unfiltered by clouds, shone its light into the gorge and onto the froth of rapids Tom figured must be Indian Gorge. They looked magical from above, a long patch of churned water between deeper, darker markings of slower water upstream and down. The canyon rim was high here—a good half mile above the river, with sheer cliff walls—but the acoustics of the rapids added a gentle rush he heard for the first time. Bathed in moonlight, the enveloping wilderness took on a pristine and serene glow—a magical quality Gail had long savored and lovingly described.

  Tom had seen enough of the river and its geologic rhythm to know that it was corseted in places by steep, facing canyon walls that gave way to cliffs on one side and more gentle—climbable—slopes on the other. Being on the cliff side of Indian Gorge, there was no path to the water’s edge. He spied another open promontory about a mile downstream from where he stood. It was below the Indian Gorge rapids and offered a good vantage of the river from which he could watch Gail tackle the white water. The problem was he would only be a spectator; there was no way down. No matter, there was no alternative other than to be there. He rubbed Maggie on her golden dome and began running once more.

  25

  Morning light grew incrementally brighter at the river’s edge. The charcoal of night turned lighter, then grayer, then a lighter shade of gray, then dirty white, then a brighter shade of white as the sun rose higher in the sky and its rays penetrated deeper into the canyon. Fog hung over the water in gossamer patches. Terry loaded the tents and other camp gear into the beached raft. Deke oversaw a somber breakfast for Gail and Roarke that consisted of cold cereal. When they were finished, he told them it was time to move on. He stood back to shepherd them to the raft. Gail took Roarke’s hand and suddenly made a run for the woods, tugging the boy with her.

  “Goddamnit, Gail,” Deke shouted after. He shook his head, then snatched the .22 from his belt and gave chase.

  “C’mon, honey, faster!” Gail challenged Roarke. She glanced back to make sure Deke was following. She crashed through a small bush at the edge of the campsite and scrambled toward a stand of trees. She headed toward two saplings only a yard’s-width apart. At the last moment, she veered around them, and sprinted toward a clearing at the foot of the steep, grassy hill that led out of the canyon. Deke quickly closed the gap. He realized he could cut them off by angling through the trees. He smiled, enjoying the pursuit.

  When he sprinted between the trees his shins hit the nearly invisible monofilament tripwire Gail had tied in place the night before. His momentum sent him sprawling headfirst into the splintered stump of a tree that Gail had figured into her trap. WUNK—Deke hit the ground hard and lay still—his gun hand stretched out before him, the tip of the stump poking through his shirt.

  Gail skidded to a halt. She waited a moment. Deke didn’t move. She peered through the brush, toward the water. Terry was leaning into the raft, adjusting something, preoccupied. Gail stared at Deke’s motionless body and swallowed. She left Roarke and hurried toward the .22. As she knelt to reach for the weapon, Deke raised it from the forest floor and aimed at Gail. His head was next, angling upward. Gail froze. The barrel of the .22 was pointed at her midsection.

  Deke locked eyes with Gail, then slowly pushed himself back onto his knees. A splinter from the stump had passed between his arm and his chest, where it missed doing any serious damage. He inspected the torn shirt and a slight skin wound: a little blood but nothing dire.

  He turned to look at the monofilament tripwire, then back at Gail. He shook his head. “Darlin’, you’re something.” His voice was filled with admiration. “If I ever need a killer lawyer …”

  ** ** **

  Terry stroked the raft away from the campsite. Deke was in the bow; Gail and Roarke were huddled in the back, tied to D rings. Terry made his way to the main current, then swung the bow downstream as Gail had taught him. At the bottom of the run, they passed beneath the cliff Tom had scaled the night before. Gail and Roarke eyed the sheer wall: the first ledge and then the second ledge with the chute above. Their gazes finally made it to the top of the canyon and the green line of towering pines that hugged the rim. Fully illuminated by morning sun, the entirety of the massive facade revealed itself like a giant relief map. Roarke stared at the cliff dull-eyed, numbed by the improbability of it being his father’s escape route. Deke taunted them by removing his .22, aiming it at the cliff and pretending to shoot. He blew imaginary smoke from the barrel and returned the gun to his belt.

  Tears fell from Gail’s eyes. She pulled Roarke closer to her. “Don’t worry, honey, Dad’s gone for help,” she whispered.

  “Wasn’t any room for him anyway,” Deke said, matter of fact.

  The raft floated around the bend, dipped into faster water, and disappeared.

  ** ** **

  Set back from the north rim of the canyon, the pine forest gave way to an alpine meadow carpeted with wild flowers. The gentle morning hush of wilderness yielded to the faint sound of something man-made. A mechanical drone, at odds with the pristine surroundings, grew louder and was swelled by the ebb and flow of car engine acoustics—now clearly decipherable. A ranger’s Fish and Game jeep burst out of the woods at the edge of the meadow. The first jeep was followed by a second, third, and fourth, all marked with Montana State Police logos and lettering. The final vehicle to emerge from the woods and make its way across the meadow was a van with the words BEAR CANYON ANGLERS visible on the sides and hood.

  Thompson Littlebuck drove the lead vehicle. Rodeo veteran Bobby Long rode shotgun. His large body barely moved as his legs absorbed the bumps and sways of the uneven terrain. “How much further?” he asked Littlebuck.

  “We’re almost there,” Littlebuck said. “Far end of the meadow.”

  ** ** **

  Ten minutes later, the ranger and the lieutenant stood near the edge of the towering cliff overlooking Indian Gorge and the rapids below. Long had traded his police uniform for cowboy boots, blue jeans, and a Western-style snap-button field shirt. He scanned the river with a pair of binoculars, then lowered the glasses and shook his head.

  “This is the next-to-last stretch after the rapids, before the takeout,” Littlebuck explained. He carved an S in the air for the lieutenant as he pointed downriver.

  “Maybe two miles from here … after the second linked meander. Then, you see where the cliffs narrow?”

  Long trained his binoculars downriver. “Yeah.”

  “That’s Canyon Gorge takeout. The river gets squeezed between cliffs just downstream from there, generating this incredible surge that hurtles you into the big one—the Gauntlet.”

  Bobby Long lowered his glasses and stepped up to the edge of the cliff. He took in the hundred yard sheer drop to the water below, then squinted into the distance to the Gauntlet and beyond, where the mountains and the canyons crowded together, folding the river in their midst, seeming to form a single tapestry of wilderness beneath a piercing blue sky. “One hell of a rive
r, tell you what,” he said to the ranger.

  “Oh, yeah,” Thompson Littlebuck said. “This one named itself.”

  Behind the two men, a half dozen state troopers, recruited from a special SWAT unit, were gearing up. The men, dressed in commando fatigues, lugged coils of rope from the jeeps to the sheer drop. One end of each coil was anchored to a tree trunk or rock. Elsewhere, sharpshooters staked out shooting stations along the canyon rim, each man positioned by a supervising trooper to cover a certain stretch of the river. At the Bear Canyon Anglers van, the commandos were handed wading boots, fishing vests, and pack rods by the store owner—civilian ingredients first. The men stuffed the gear into backpacks before stopping at the arms vehicle to collect the business end of their equipment: knives, handguns, and ammunition. When the men were fully provisioned, they gathered around Bobby Long for final instructions. “Take up positions one bend below Indian Rapids. In your fishing gear. It’s possible the suspects will row straight to the takeout with the hostages, but that seems unlikely. The woman’s a former river guide. One scenario has her getting them through the rapids, the last tricky stretch before the takeout. After that, her value to them goes down. Which is where you come in … and why you’re going to be where you are. They snapped that Red Lodge woman’s neck. They might have killed others. Mr. Littlebuck here said it looked to him that they had beaten the shit out of the husband. Who knows if they’ve done something worse since. We want you to make sure no one else gets killed … unless it’s these two guys.”

  Long held up mug shots of Deke and Terry. “I don’t much care if they come off the river in a body bag. But I want the woman, her husband, and the boy alive. You’re in fishing gear to give you the element of surprise. They don’t know we know they’re on the river, at least we think they don’t. They’re no doubt armed. If you can somehow separate them from the family members—safely—fine. If there’s any question, shoot first. Is that clear? You’ll have sharpshooter backup, but you’re Plan A. First interceptors. We don’t know when they’ll be coming downriver, but our assumption is sometime in daylight. Any questions?”