Cold Dish wl-1

by Craig Johnson

  I was looking around now, too. “We had prints like these at the scene where Jacob was killed.”

  He stood. “So, George was there?”

  “We checked them, and one of the guys that reported the incident wore size nine Vasques.”

  “What was Jacob wearing?”

  I thought back. “The same.”

  “Size nine?”

  “They are twins.”

  “Well, one set of prints is better than two, not that I’d be able to tell the difference.” We continued down the trail to the tent. The rain fly was zipped, and there was a backpack leaned against a tree with the rain cover placed over it. The small ring of a campfire lay cold in the circle of rocks about ten feet from the tent; there was an aluminum frying pan and a plastic bag of corn flour resting on one of the flatter rocks. The heads of a few trout lay in the ashes, along with the strips of bone with connected tails. Henry kneeled by the fire and placed the palm of his hand in the ashes, gently pressing down. After a moment, his eyes came up. “It is old, but there is a little warmth here. Maybe this morning.”

  “Any more tracks?”

  He nodded. “Vasques, size nine.”

  We looked at each other for a moment. “I don’t like this, do you?”

  “No.”

  He pulled his hand up and dusted it off as I continued over to the tent and slipped the pack to the ground, then crouched and unzipped the rain fly and the screen on the tent. I pulled back and turned to look at Henry. “Well, he spent the night here.”

  “But no fishing equipment?”

  “No.”

  He looked around. “I will take one lake, and you take the other. Here.” He tossed the Weatherby to me and extended his hand for the shotgun. He smiled as he took the Remington. “You are a better shot than I am.” He scanned the surrounding hills. “Just in case there is somebody up there.”

  I nodded. “You got the rest of the ammunition?”

  He patted his pockets and shrugged. “You only need one, right?” Henry turned and disappeared into the pines toward the eastern lake.

  I looked at the rifle and considered whether it was loaded or not. For all I knew the Bear was standing just out of sight, listening to see if I would open the bolt action. I shook my head at the ridiculousness of the situation and pulled the. 308 up onto my shoulder. If he was standing out there, I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of hearing me check. Instead, I readjusted the forgotten. 45 on my hip and made a face at a man I was sure had already begun the search around his own lake. I started off around mine thinking about what Ruby had said. Just because someone had sighted an old, green pickup didn’t mean Henry was a killer. In my experience, smoke usually indicated smoke and nothing more.

  There were coal-bed methane operations in the vicinity of the Robertses’ place. To these men, time meant money and time in our part of the high plains meant driving, which to them meant speeding. From economic necessity, a lot of them drive older outfits, and any one of them could have been speeding to or from one of the many rigs in the area at that hour of the morning. I knew I was working up a grand rationalization but just because a truck was green and old didn’t mean that it was Henry’s. Even so, I once again had the urge to pull the bolt and see if the rifle was loaded. I looked back at the other Twin but kept the rifle on my shoulder, considering it a triumph of righteous logic, and wondered how many poor dumb bastards had died in the name of that particular line of thought. I stayed on the path that circled the lake, careful to avoid the wetter sections where the snowmelt had gathered and saturated the ground, but I didn’t see any more footprints. I bolstered my spirits by reminding myself that I’d also not found any bodies.

  Vasques, size nine. Had George been with Jacob? If he had, then why? And why would he be at the scene of his brother’s death and then go fishing? Maybe Cody Pritchard did know his killer. My head was starting to swim with all the options, but one thing was starting to come clear: Just because you were a victim didn’t mean you couldn’t be a perpetrator.

  I thought about Jim Keller. Mrs. Keller had come into the jail to check on her baby boy and had been somewhat disarmed at finding him in my office with his feet propped up on my desk. He was drinking a ginger ale and leafing through a stack of police supply catalogs. I guess she figured we’d have him chained up in the basement. I asked her about Jim, and she said that he was hunting down in Nebraska with some friends; geese, she said. There was a hesitancy in the way she said it that led me to believe there was something more there. So I used one of my age-old cop tricks and asked her if there was anything else she wanted to tell me. She used one of the age-old mother tricks and just said no. Cop tricks pale in comparison with mother tricks.

  I looked back around the crescent ring of mountains and thought about what I would do if I wanted to kill someone here. I thought about how I might lure him into a remote area and then splatter him like a ripe pumpkin. It was about then that I decided to concentrate on taking in more of the scenery. Lost Twin is a lot like the other hundreds of pristine, alpine lakes in the Bighorns that seem to be sitting and waiting for calendar photographers. It lies in one of the mountain’s few hanging valleys, and you could easily envision the tributary glacier that had gently cut this hidden one. With their beds of stone, the Lost Twins had given up little to the forces of erosion. It was as if their hearts had been broken by the retreating glacier, and they were not likely to allow such liberties again. These glaciers formed steps and benches, each successive one at a higher altitude. I had seen pictures of the Coliseum in Rome, and the similarity did nothing to ease my mind. I felt the wind and automatically looked back down the valley. The clouds were starting to move at a surreal pace; evidently, they had caught their breath. Maybe it was the altitude, but the weather always seemed to change more quickly on the mountains.

  My attention was brought back to the trees, where I had seen movement. It wasn’t a singular movement, but rather a collection of movements that I quickly dismissed as the wind.

  Omar was still fiddling with the helicopter when I reached the hill leading up to the ridge. I stood there, and the air tasted good. I took a little bit of time to breathe in the smells of the pines, the rocks, and the water. There was a large patch of delicate, freeze-dried yellow flowers that lined the south side of the small ridge. Henry would know what they were. He was making his way around the scree-lined bank of the other lake, probably doing a much more thorough job than I had done with mine. I watched as he crouched down and studied a shallow area between the rocks. The acrylic fur wreathed his neck, and the scattergun was resting lightly on his shoulder as he held the pistol grip. He stayed that way, and I had the feeling I was getting a select view of the Athapascan race that had braved the Bering Strait in search of two bigger and better mastodons in each garage. Sometimes I didn’t think his DNA thought things had worked out so well. I wasn’t quite sure why I had decided on the shotgun, other than it balanced out the. 308’s long-range capacities; and, like a good scout, I was always attempting to be prepared, or reverent, or something like that. I continued to watch him as he studied a shallow area between the rocks and peered across the lake toward the area of the tent. As Henry made it to the top of the ridge, I asked, “Anything?”

  He shook his head and looked back in the direction from which he had come, as if whatever he might have missed would be more visible from half a mile away. The wind was picking up, and the gusts were becoming more consistent. “Boot prints, same as before, but nothing fresh.”

  “What do you think?”

  He stretched his legs and tucked the shotgun under one arm; I noticed the safety was on. “Difficult to say with all the scree; he could have gone off anywhere.”

  “Alien abduction?”

  “Possible, but unlikely. They are usually looking for intelligent life.”

  I exhaled a lung full of the good smells, and we both looked down the valley to the trail out. “He’s fishing.”

  “Yes, that, or a lyin
’ and a molderin’ in the grave.”

  I looked back at him. “Let’s concentrate on the fishing, okay?”

  “Yes.” He continued looking down the trail. “You need water for that.” He finally looked back at me. “You thinking what I am thinking?”

  “Three hours in good weather?”

  His eyes watched the clouds; they were even closer than before. “I do not think that is going to be the case. Anyway, four, with the packs.”

  I tried not to put too much bass in my voice, “I wasn’t planning on taking them.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Do you mind jumping up and down so I can hear your big brass balls clank?”

  “It’s only three hours…”

  “In good weather, which we are not going to have.” He looked at his wristwatch as a particularly strong gust caused both of us to shift our shoulders. “Even then, it will be after dark.” I continued to look at him. “We get caught in here without any supplies, we are the honored dead.”

  “Yep, but what a blaze of glory.” I was enjoying being the tough guy for a change.

  “I am more concerned with the freeze of agony.”

  “I have to find that kid, dead or alive.”

  I watched as he stretched his back and looked toward Omar, who stood at the nose of the helicopter with his arms folded. My forty-five minute window of opportunity already had the storm shutters closed and was prepared to depart at roughly twice the national speed limit. I briefly thought about telling Henry to go on back without me, but it would have been an insult. So I just stood there, waiting. “We find him dead, we leave him.”

  I lied. “Agreed.”

  “I will get some supplies from the packs. I refuse to leave here without water and some food.”

  “We could always eat George, if we find him.” I watched after Henry as he crossed the ridge toward the tent where we had left the packs. His step seemed to have lost some of its natural spring. I called after him, “How long till snow?”

  He called back without turning, “How the hell should I know?”

  Maybe we were going to die. I trudged up the hill toward the helicopter and Omar. “You need to get out of here.”

  He pushed the Ray-Bans further up on his nose. “What’re you gonna do?”

  “We’re going to trail out back to West Tensleep. That kid’s here, somewhere, and I figure the only thing to do is follow the water out.”

  “You and the Indian?”

  I looked at my reflection in his polarized sunglasses. “Yep.” I didn’t mean for it to have as much warning as it did, but that’s the way it shook out. He didn’t say anything, just opened the cockpit door and reached in to retrieve a handheld that he gave to me. The rotors pitched slightly as another gust rushed up the valley.

  “It’s already set at your frequency, so if you need to talk to anybody you should get through, as long as you’ve got reception.”

  “Thanks.”

  He looked at me for a moment as if memorizing me, and I can’t say it was comfortable. “I notice you’re carrying the. 308.”

  “We traded.”

  He considered it for a moment. “Make sure he stays ahead of you.” His face was stiff. “I’m not joking.”

  I looked at him and thought about saying a number of things. “We’ll be all right.” I waited a moment. “Get in touch with Ferg and Vic and tell them to meet us at West Tensleep parking lot, if you would?” We both looked back at the weather. “Tell them to bring hot coffee.”

  Omar sighed a deep sigh, climbed into the helicopter, and held the door open with a foot. He began flipping switches and from the center of the machine a high whine began slowly setting the rotors in motion. He started to place the headphones over his ears but stopped, leaned sideways through the still open door, and shouted to be heard over the increasing roar of the big engine, “You tell that Indian, if he comes out of here alone?”

  I waited.

  “I will see him dead.”

  I lowered my head, held the Weatherby in both hands, and quickly dropped over the ridge. The deep hues of the helicopter’s exterior reflected the lakes; it quickly rose from the rocks and veered toward the center of the valley as a few pieces of the trimmed lodgepole pines scattered and dropped to the ground. A strong blast of the oncoming storm caught the chopper broadside, sending it in a cascading pitch that threatened to drop it in the lake below. Omar deflected the wind pattern and converted the stall into a rolling turn that carried it across the valley. I continued to watch for the next minute as he made the grade and slipped through the pass and down the mountainside toward the safety of Durant International far below. I walked the rest of the way down the hill and met Henry at the ridge. “Neiman Marcus decided not to honor our frequent flier miles.”

  “That is what we get for flying coach.” He handed me an abbreviated version of my pack. “The tops disconnect from the rest to make a fanny pack. We both have two bottles of water and a little food, but that is all.”

  “A jug of wine and thou…” He didn’t say anything but turned and started off down the banks of the western lake toward the trail that would eventually lead us out. A haze had begun enveloping the hills where the trail disappeared. The fog of low-flying clouds had begun eating the mountains, and we were headed down its throat. I wasn’t quite sure why I was feeling as good as I was. Maybe it was because I had perceived a challenge and had accepted it, or maybe it was because I didn’t see any other options. But I felt good and decided not to ruin it with too much recrimination. I caught up and pulled alongside of him. “He can’t be too far, since he left all his stuff at the lake.”

  “Or he is dead.”

  “I wish you’d stop saying that.”

  He turned his head slightly toward me as he walked. “Would you go out this way fishing and leave all your supplies at the lake?”

  “He’s not the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree.”

  “Maybe.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  I notice that he had tied some tubular webbing from the packs to the shotgun, making a sling, which he now pulled up higher on his shoulder. “Do you remember what George Esper looks like?”

  I thought for a moment. “Yep.”

  “I remember what Cody Pritchard looked like, I remember what Bryan Keller looks like, and I have a pretty good image of what Jacob Esper looked like, but whenever I think of George, I cannot seem to bring the image into focus.”

  I thought about the pictures, the ones I kept in the Little Bird file, the ones I had cut from the Durant High School yearbook. I had studied them enough over the past few years that I should have been able to tell you every significant feature of George Esper’s face, but I couldn’t. I shook my head. “Look, maybe we’re getting worked up about nothing. Maybe he’s just waiting for his brother.”

  He started down the trail and called over his shoulder, “He will be waiting for a long time.”

  We climbed the hillside in the Forest Service’s zigzag pattern that led to a granite outcropping where the run-off from the lakes escaped to the rocks below. The wind picked up again, and the cold air found every inch of uncovered skin on my hands, ears, and neck. I looked down the valley and at the trail we would be using as the snow began overtaking everything within a quarter mile. In two minutes, it would be to us. Henry had stopped too, to pull up the government-issue parka hood and to look back at the lakes. I pushed his shoulder. “Considering the situation, why don’t you talk about something happy?”

  I watched as he tied the drawstring at his neck. “I thought I was.” He shifted the shotgun from his shoulder and cradled it in his arms, first looking down the trail at the approaching wall of snow, then off to the distant lakes. His eyes softened at the view, and he seemed sad. “These… young men, when they did what they did to my niece? For me, they no longer existed. For good or bad, they were gone.” His eyes returned to mine. “Do you understand?” His eyes stayed with mine. “It is the best I can afford them.”


  I waited a moment, but it seemed as if he wanted me to say something. “All right.”

  He smiled and once again threw the makeshift strap of the shotgun over his shoulder. “It is far from that, but it will have to do.” He continued to smile, then flipped the flaps down on his fingerless gloves and twisted his fingers into the mitts. The smile warmed me even as the flakes began stinging my face. He threw a paw up and thumped my shoulder twice. “Anyway… Revenge is a dish best served cold.” With this, he turned and walked into the low-flying clouds and the maelstrom of snow that had reached us.

  I listened as the drums began a low rhythm and watched as the broad shoulders picked their way carefully down the trail. The world began to turn white, and the Bear disappeared.

  12

  Even in the snow-muffled air and the distance between us, I heard the gunshot.

  We had been battling our way through the wind and the snow; it was an early storm, so the flakes were as big as silver dollars and, with the force of the wind, hit with the same impact. Henry and I had worked our way over the slight rise and outcropping, staying to the right as the trail followed the general path of the stream, and had moved past Mirror Lake with no results. The water continued to run fast from the hanging valley and you could hear it when the wind died down, which it did but with lessening regularity. The blizzard had arrived, visibility had dropped to about twenty feet, and you couldn’t see much of anything except the creek.

  The Forest Service path remained visible as it wound its way along the stream basin but, in another hour, the depression that made up the trail would be filled with the fast accumulating snow. I took a small measure of solace in the fact that the part that led to the West Tensleep parking lot was not only tree covered but downhill, and we didn’t have that far to go before we would get to that section. But the farther we got, the farther my heart sank with the thought that George Esper was not going to be found. I had already summoned up the image of George’s bones, scattered by all the little animals by springtime, their bleached white contrasting sharply with the green of the fresh, high-meadow grass. I watched as Henry’s image faded in and out of the white swarm of the blowing snow. Every time he disappeared, I quickened my step a bit, wanting comfort from the dark shape that stayed just ahead of me.