Lone Star Rising

by Kurt Winans

  When Heath and his date eventually stood from their seats at the table, Courtney had no idea as to what had been discussed between them or where it might lead. She was prepared to follow them nearly anywhere in an attempt to learn more, and that would include moving through a crowded casino. Moments later Courtney witnessed the two of them in an embrace from afar, but was then relieved to see that after a kiss they went their separate ways. Her target entered an elevator which Courtney knew would take the woman in the direction of her hotel room, while the gentleman turned and moved back through the casino toward an exit door. After a moment, Courtney then positioned herself where she could keep an eye on the elevators. As with each of the previous nights during such surveillance, she wanted to ensure that her target would remain within the hotel tower. When satisfied an hour later that her target had indeed called it a night, Courtney did the same. She was fully prepared for the actions of the coming morning, and would get a slightly earlier than usual start for it.

  What Courtney hadn’t realized while watching the target and her date say goodnight, was that the two of them had agreed to meet for dinner again the following evening. Her target, although tempted to spend more time with the gentleman caller, was aware that she and her friend only had one more day to ski together. Therefore she had said to him, “Thank you again for dinner Heath. You are a nice man, but for the sake of both my dignity and my friend who is waiting upstairs, I’m afraid that I need to say goodnight.”

  With a smile he had replied, “I understand and it’s no problem. Thank your friend for letting you do this, and I look forward to seeing you again tomorrow evening.”

  “Thanks Heath, I will. And I want you to know that I won’t have any type of restrictions tomorrow night, so who knows where things might lead.”

  Courtney drove her rented suburban into the adjacent parking lot of Heavenly Valley’s Stagecoach lodge and chairlift well ahead of when the lift would begin operations for the day. In so doing, she had assured herself of a prime parking spot very close to where she could ski to when the time came for a stealthy departure. That same large parking lot had been used by Courtney during each of the five previous days, while she shadowed the various movements and tendencies of her intended target. Those actions, along with similar observations throughout each of the five corresponding evenings in casinos, restaurants, and bars within the Stateline area, had gone unnoticed as Courtney continued to alter her appearance of physical features and wardrobe two or three times each day. Now on this Friday morning of April ninth, Courtney began the final preparations to complete her assigned mission.

  The day had dawned per the prediction of the weather forecast to a warm yet overcast sky with absolutely no breeze to speak of. Those conditions were perfect for what Courtney had planned, and by having previously scouted the topography in close proximity to the path of the Stagecoach chairlift, she could now move toward what she believed to be an ideal location. After fine-tuning her blond wig and rechecking the gear within her large backpack, Courtney moved to the back of the suburban and put on her ski boots. As a few other cars began to file into the parking area, she put her backpack on, flung her skis and poles over her shoulder, and walked toward the ticket booth.

  A young lady seated within the booth smiled and said, “Good morning.”

  As Courtney pulled the necessary cash from her pocket for a full-day lift ticket, she replied, “Good morning to you as well.”

  “You’re getting an early start; the lift won’t open for a few more minutes.”

  “I know, but I wanted to get all the way up to the top of Dipper chair for a few runs before it gets crowded.”

  A few minutes later Courtney stood nearby as the Stagecoach chairlift began to move. When informed that it was alright to do so, she pushed forward on her skis as the first customer of the day. Then she pulled off her backpack, and prepared to board the lift.

  The young man who checked her ticket for authenticity said, “Good morning miss. That’s a big backpack; it’s hard to believe that could be your lunch.”

  Courtney smiled and replied, “It’s actually mostly camera equipment and a collapsible tripod. I’m going to try and get some good shots from various places up near Dipper chair.”

  Then he made an awkward attempt at flirtation by saying, “That sounds cool. Maybe you can show me some of them this afternoon when you come back down.”

  She was nearly old enough to be his mother as he appeared to be in his mid-twenties, but Courtney was pleased that she had somehow caught the young man’s eye. Then thinking that he probably made some sort of a pass at dozens of women every week, she realized that his show of interest wasn’t about her at all. While offering less of a smile, Courtney replied with a lie of, “Sorry, but my ride is going to pick me up at the California base lodge.”

  With that she moved forward so that the next empty chair could whisk her away, and placed her pack in the seat next to her as it did. Shortly thereafter she glanced over to the right and down to where she would soon wait in hiding. Then she looked at her watch to see how long it would take before reaching the top of the lift for unloading, and made a mental note of it. In keeping with her separate stories at both the ticket window and while boarding the lift, Courtney followed the trail to the right at the top of the lift as if she were heading to the higher altitude Dipper chairlift. Then at the appropriate fork in the trail, she turned right so as not to proceed in that direction at all. The new course which Courtney selected would instead send her downward to merge with another run which could take her back to where she had parked. However, she had no intent of doing that just yet either. Long before she reached the rented suburban, or even before coming into view of those employees who had seen her board the chairlift, Courtney’s plan was to alter her course once again by moving toward an outcropping of exposed huge boulders. She had no way of knowing that in the depths of a typical winter those rocks would be nearly completely buried in snow for weeks on end, but as it was early April during the final throws of a modest winter, the snow level near the cache of heat absorbing boulders had been significantly diminished.

  When the middle portion of the Stagecoach chairlift came into distant view, Courtney veered to the left and into the trees as planned. She moved carefully on her skis through the ungroomed terrain so as not to fall, and soon arrived at her chosen location. Once at the outcropping of boulders which she had thoroughly scouted two days before, Courtney removed her skis and hid them where they could not be seen from those who would be riding the lift and passing less than fifteen feet to the right of directly overhead. Then she crept into a pocket of space formed between the boulders, removed and unzipped her large backpack, and began assembling her weapon. Within a few minutes she was all set for the hit, and would only need to wait patiently for her prey to arrive.

  Perring through the scope of her sniper rifle, Courtney could view all those riding the chairlift from its base on up to her position with ease. She could even focus in on the loading spot itself, and settled her sights on that position. In spite of the pleasant early morning, the chairlift remained relatively empty for several more minutes with no more than the an occasional pair of snowboarders. Then with a glance at her watch, Courtney realized that the time would soon be upon her. If the target had stayed true to her well-established patterns of the previous five days, she would now be either in, or approaching, the parking lot. Another glance at her watch a few minutes later informed Courtney that she needed to be ready, and before long, the woman that she would kill for Samuel came into view at the chairlift loading spot.

  Courtney then counted seven empty chairs in front of the target, and as the lift brought the woman and her familiar female companion toward the kill zone, she could see that the chair directly behind her target was also empty. Such spacing was indeed a bit of unexpected luck, as was the fact that the safety bar on her targets chair to prevent those onboard from accidentally falling out had been lowered. Pleased by the favorable condition
s, Courtney would gladly exploit both of those factors. While in the act of flicking off the safety, the sun began to brighten the area as it peeked through a small gap in the overcast sky. Had she been out in the open to take the shot, the sunny condition of the moment could have been cause for concern. Fortunately for Courtney, that was not the case. The small opening between the boulders that the barrel and scope were positioned within would provide suitable cover from the early morning spring sun even if it weren’t behind and well to the right of her position. With that added precaution, there would be no possibility of her position being revealed by identifying reflective glare coming off of the scope.

  The two women riding the chairlift were engaged in a moderate level of conversation, but both generally maintained a forward gaze. When their positon had become slightly more than one hundred yards away, which allowed for an increased level of deadly accuracy, Courtney whispered the words, “Sorry Domonique, nothing personal.”

  Then she drew in a slow deep breath and squeezed the trigger. Not a sound could be heard from more than a few feet away due to the silencer on the weapon, and Courtney saw the head of her victim lurch back sharply as the bullet entered through her right eye socket. In an instant she shifted the rifle slightly and squeezed the trigger again. Another clean hit as the friend that Domonique shared time with all week had been eliminated as well. In the few seconds that followed, Courtney hoped that neither of the two now dead women would slump forward against the safety bar. There was no question that the bar would hold them within the chair, as that was its design function, but such posture of the riders could be noticed by someone before the dead women would reach the unloading point of the lift. While still looking through the scope, Courtney was relieved to see that both women had remained upright with their motionless heads tilted back. Shifting her view toward the ground beneath the chairlift, visible signs of blood, hair, and brain matter could be seen splattered upon the snow. Fortunately the victims had not been shot while at a distance of perhaps three or four hundred yards, which would have placed them directly over the wide open ski run. Consequently, no random skier in the near future would accidentally stumble upon the evidence. As for anyone riding the lift either directly behind them, or in the coming minutes, they would need to look nearly straight downward at the correct moment for the same discovery.

  Positioning her rifle toward the path of the dangling chairs once again, Courtney took aim at the two men riding two chairs behind her now disposed of primary target. Drawing a slow deep breath again, she squeezed off two more silenced rounds in rapid succession. Her intent was to then also kill those who were riding another two chairs behind in order to establish the cover of a mass shooting, as that would help to divert the investigational focus off of any single victim. Courtney would never fire those shots though, because the first intended victim of that third chair to appear in the crosshairs of the scope was a girl roughly the age of her daughter Jennifer. Courtney just wasn’t ready to take away such a young life unless it had been deemed as the primary target, and accordingly released her finger from the trigger.

  As those two lucky souls rode past above and to the right of Courtney’s position, she had already policed her brass from the four rounds which had been fired. She didn’t hear any shouting or screaming from the lift above, which would have suggested that the riders had become aware of the four victims in front of them. Nor had they turned to look in Courtney’s direction to imply that they had seen her in hiding. With that Courtney started the timer on her watch, and realized that she now had perhaps as much as one minute less than the usual amount of time that it would take for her primary targets chair to reach the top. With expertise she quickly disassembled and stowed her weapon within the confines of her backpack, and crawled out from her hiding spot within the boulders. Then she put her ski’s back on, and began moving downward through the tree cover to her left toward her suburban. When she emerged from the trees with roughly five hundred yards to still cover, Courtney kept a watchful eye on the chairlift. There were still only sporadic riders upon it, and as long as it kept moving, there was no problem.

  By the time the first chair of dead passengers reached the top of the lift and they had failed to unload, she was nearly to her vehicle. As the chairlift came to a sudden stop when the dangling skis of those still in the chair tripped a safety switch, Courtney knew that she still had several minutes before anyone would fully fathom what had transpired. She stopped as close to her suburban as possible, removed her skis, and placed them in the back of the vehicle. Then with a level of expediency, she removed her backpack and switched out her bulky ski boots for comfortable tennis shoes, climbed into the vehicle, and casually drove out of the parking lot. Within the next few minutes she then began her eastward drive down the mountain on Highway 207 toward Carson Valley and the Minden-Tahoe Airport.

  The operator stationed at the top of the Stagecoach chairlift was perturbed when he noticed that its motion suddenly came to a stop. With the lift nearly devoid of passengers, he had lost focus and shifted his eyes from the unloading ramp for a moment or two so that he could tend to the pressing news of all which his cell phone had to offer. Because of that distraction, he hadn’t noticed the two women approach and then fail to unload from their chair. Had his focus been where it was supposed to be, the operator would have seen the two seemingly unconscious people miss the offloading ramp and been able to slow the chair to a crawl before they reached the safety gate. For that matter, he probably would have noticed a few seconds earlier that neither of them had made any moves in preparation to unload. That alone would have been an early red flag for potential trouble, as even the most experienced of skiers or snowboarders would have at least exhibited some movements toward that end.

  While putting on his jacket to venture outside, the young man realized that he would most assuredly receive some grief from his fellow operators for such a rookie mistake. Then he thought about what his boss would say, and how unhappy she would be over having to file a report of his negligence. Of course all of that unpleasantness would come later, but before that could come to pass, he was required by the description of his job duties to address the immediate needs of the two passengers. Even though in his mind they were probably nothing more than a couple of stupid tourists who were not paying attention to when they should have unloaded, he still needed to handle them with kid gloves while offering assistance.

  Stepping out of the warm confines of his control booth and taking a few steps towards them, he loudly asked, “Are you two alright?”

  There was no response from either passenger, so he asked again. Then a snowboarder, who with his buddy was waiting for a few other friends to arrive, observed and stated, “Check out those two. They look as if they are still sleeping off the party of last night!”

  After turning to the man with a smile and slight nod of agreement, the lift operator attempted to make the two people on the chair feel at ease with a little innocent lie. He moved a few strides closer to them and said, “Hey don’t worry about missing the unloading ramp, because it happens more often than you think. We should have you down from there in a few minutes.”

  There was still no response, so the young man trudged to a position nearly directly underneath the motionless passengers in case they hadn’t heard him. That was when he noticed the blood dripping down onto the snow, and that the intervals in time between those drops of blood were decreasing.

  At that same instant he heard a female voice from somewhere down the chairlift loudly scream out, “Oh my God!”

  To that he took a glance in her direction to see that she was waving hysterically and then pointing down. Based on the rocking motion which had been created by the sudden stop of the lift, a man riding two chairs in front of her had fallen out. While then looking down at the motionless body, the lift operator called out, “Are you hurt sir?”

  As with the two people who had failed to unload, there was no response. Then the guy who had made fun of them
as if they were sleeping off multiple drinks of the previous night pushed closer on his snowboard for a better look. Seeing the blood dripping down from the backs of their heads, he stated, “Hey, I think those people are dead!”

  Realizing that the young man who might spend the majority of his days in some level of self-induced fog was most probably crystal clear in his recent observation, the lift operator bolted for his control booth. Before he could get there, the phone within was already ringing.

  Snatching the phone from its cradle, he said, “Hello, stagecoach top here.”

  Before he could continue he heard the reply of, “No kidding? Well this is stagecoach base. What’s going on? We’re supposed to call one another if we stop the lift for some reason.”

  Out of breath from the adrenaline rush of the moment, he replied sharply with, “I know the procedure, but I had to check out the problem first.”

  “Alright, so is everything cool? Can we start up the lift again?”

  Then while attempting to wrap his mind around the situation before him, he watched helplessly as the other man in the chair just short of the unloading platform rolled out and fell to the ground. While speaking with a noticeable level of panic in his voice, the operator said, “I’m not sure if we can start up the lift or not.”