The Bone Thief bf-5

by Jefferson Bass

  As the darkness deepened, so did the growl of menace I heard rumbling in the water. Both sides of the gorge got steeper, the rocks became mossy, and the footing grew treacherous. The second time my feet slid out from under me, I decided to seek higher, drier ground. I could still follow the river’s course by ear, I reasoned, but I’d be safer if I didn’t need to negotiate every riverside boulder and ledge in the darkness. Overhead, in the wedge of night sky, I found the Big Dipper and the North Star, which confirmed that I was indeed headed westward, toward the highway. That knowledge was reassuring, but the absence of moonlight was disheartening.

  Gradually the terrain I was crossing steepened, and soon I was reduced to side-crawling on all fours, scuttling blindly across the slope. Judging by the leaves beneath my hands, I was in deciduous forest of some sort — maybe tulip poplars, maybe oaks and maples. The leaves were dry; the winter snows that had fallen on this south-facing slope had long since melted.

  The leafy soil under my hands and feet had just given way to bare rock when I took a step sideways and suddenly felt myself sliding off a ledge. Instinctively I flung out my arms, and as my legs and then my hips crossed the brink, I managed to catch hold of a small tree rooted in a crevice. Clinging to it, I prayed that it would hold, and I carefully hauled myself up onto the ledge. In the darkness I couldn’t see the cliff that nearly claimed me, nor could I see the tree that saved me. Guided only by the sound of the river and the feel of the mountainside, I groped onward.

  The feel changed abruptly in the space of one sideways step, and the mountainside grew loose and crumbly beneath my left hand and left foot. I stopped and swept my hand across the ground in an arc, from my foot up to shoulder height and above. I felt no trees, no twigs, not even dead leaves — nothing but crumbling soil and loose rocks. My God, I thought, a landslide. How wide is this, and how unstable, and how in the world do I cross it?

  I crossed it by inches, feeling for handholds and footholds before committing to a move. After half a dozen such moves, I came to a rock the size of a watermelon, half buried in the loose slope to the left of my head. As I edged beneath it, the rock tore free in my hands. I ducked my head, shifted to the left, and dug my left toe and left hand into the loose soil, praying that they’d hold. Sparks sprang from the mountainside as the rock crashed down — fifty feet, eighty feet, a hundred or more. It clattered to a stop on the heap of earth and rock and trees that had recently sheared off and slid down the slope.

  By the time I’d traversed the slide zone and reentered the forest, I was exhausted. I couldn’t see my watch in the darkness — I couldn’t even see my hand in the blackness — but I guessed it must be midnight or later, and my strength was gone. I need to sleep for a little while, I thought. Bracing my feet on a large tree, I lay down, though I was actually as near to standing as I was to reclining. Raking dead leaves from the dirt around me, I created a nest to retain whatever body heat I could.

  Just as I began to doze, I was awakened by my body’s shivering, mild at first, then violent. As long as I’d kept scrabbling across the slope, I’d felt tolerably warm in my thin shirt, except for the cold seeping into my hands. But with my internal engine now idling — and sputtering at that, given my lack of food and water — I couldn’t withstand the cold. I had to keep moving.

  But I was growing seriously dehydrated. There was water, and in abundance, only a few hundred feet below me. I was reminded of its presence, and its power, as I crept blindly past each roaring rapid. Reluctantly, fearfully, I began edging downward, relinquishing my buffer from the wet rocks and the churning water.

  Soon the unseen stream filled my ears, only a few feet to my left. Now all I had to do was find a safe place to descend the bank and drink. Would it be safer — and sap less body heat — to scoop up handfuls of water or to lie on my belly and drink like a wild animal? My hands were already going numb, so I felt inclined to lie flat and put my face in the stream.

  I was just beginning to anticipate the taste when I took a small step with my left foot and — for the second time that night — found nothing there. Odd: I’d been shuffling along, feeling my way with excruciating slowness, yet even so, the earth dropped away beneath me. I felt myself toppling, free-falling, and then landing in frigid water. Just below the surface, my left side hit a rock, and I felt a sharp pain in my ribs.

  But it was the gasp-inducing frigidity of the water that imperiled me. If my head had been submerged, I would surely have inhaled a lethal lungful of water. As I struggled to gain my footing on the slippery rocks, I realized how little time I had. I was already on the edge of hypothermia; the frigid water would surely push me over the brink swiftly. And for the first time, as I began to shiver violently, I wondered if I should give in, simply surrender to the cold and the exhaustion and the pain. Hypothermia was said to be a relatively swift and pleasant way to go, after all. If I remained in the water, or even crawled onto a rock and lay still, perhaps I’d drift off painlessly after only a few moments of cold. Would that be so bad, really, given the turns my life had taken lately? Jeff wouldn’t answer my phone calls, Miranda despised me, the TBI wanted to interrogate me, UT would surely fire me, Ray Sinclair wanted to ruin or kill me, and a federal fugitive was carrying my child. How much easier it might be to let go than to keep struggling and striving.

  The river’s current washed me onto a small, rocky beach, and I crawled out and lay on my back so I could see the sky before my eyes closed. The Big Dipper had shifted dramatically from its position at nightfall, rotating a quarter turn around the North Star. The great wheel of life and fate would continue to spin long after I was gone. I found that comforting and hoped that life would bring abundant happiness to those I cared about: to Jeff and Jenny and their boys, to Miranda and Art, to the struggling Garcias. I even wished some form of peace to Isabella, wherever she was.

  But as I lay there, sending benevolent wishes to the universe on behalf of those people, a small realization forced its way into my slipping consciousness. My death would not bring abundant goodness to my family, friends, and colleagues; in fact, it would surely bring deep sadness. When I was three, my own father had killed himself, and although that act had ended his own inner pain, it had created untold pain in those he left behind. If I simply gave in to the cold right now, instead of fighting for life with everything I had, wouldn’t that be a halfhearted, cowardly version of suicide? Did I want to let myself die instead of trying harder to live for the ones I loved?

  I shook my head to clear it. I rolled onto my right side, then onto my stomach, and took a deep drink of the ice-cold water — the drink I’d come down to get, before my fall. Then I found a gnarled rhododendron branch snaking down the high, steep embankment, grabbed it with both hands, and pulled myself upward.

  I found the pole star again, low above the opposite ridge. It was on my right as I turned downstream. That meant I was still heading west. Still heading for the highway. Still heading for life. I scrabbled uphill as quickly as I could, putting some distance between myself and the stream’s treacherous gorge, and as I did, the effort gradually took away some of the chill.

  Eventually I felt, rather than saw, an opening ahead of me. I still couldn’t see my hand in front of my face unless I held it up to create a five-fingered silhouette against the starry sky. But the blackness ahead was suddenly less black than it had been. It seemed like open, empty blackness rather than forested blackness. Grasping a tree branch for safety, I used a foot to probe the ground ahead. It turned rocky, and then it turned to empty air. I was on the brink of another cliff, though I had no way of knowing if it was ten feet high or a hundred. If I turned slightly left, I could continue along what felt like the edge of the precipice — but that would be heading south, not west. Had I come to a sharp bend in the river gorge, or was this a side canyon, carved by a lesser tributary? If it was, then following it would take me back up into the mountains, and that would be disastrous. I had to stop until daylight. I hoped I could make it until dayligh
t.

  Once again I braced my feet on a tree and lay down on steeply sloping ground. As before, I began to shiver within a few minutes of lying down. This time, unable to press onward, I jumped in place to warm up. I shook my arms and hands — my fingers had remained numb ever since my tumble into the stream — to keep the blood circulating. After warming up, I lay back down until the shivering recommenced, and then I jumped and flapped my arms again madly.

  The third time I lay down to rest, I must have slept briefly, because when I opened my eyes, the sky had gone from black to gray. I had survived the night — the near fall off a ledge, the near miss with the boulder in the landslide zone, the hard tumble into the frigid stream. As the terrain around me grew visible and the air began to warm, the odds began shifting in my favor for the first time since sundown. I took a deep breath and exhaled, smiling at the plume of fog in the cold, pale light.

  I’d been wise to wait. I had indeed come to a side canyon, and the bluff here was fifty feet high, with only a few narrow notches that could be descended. A tall, thin tree slanted up through one of these. Leaning out, I grabbed the tree with both hands, braced against it, and chimneyed down the cleft. Once down, I stepped across the small stream that had carved the ravine and continued along the left bank of the West Prong.

  A short distance after I’d crossed the tributary, the river curved to the left, and as I rounded the curve, I felt my breath catch: A hundred yards away was the bridge over Laurel Creek Road — the bridge I’d been aiming for all night. I was exhausted and hurt, but I was alive, and I’d made it.

  As I approached the bridge, the left bank grew increasingly steep. There was no avoiding it: I’d have to ford the river one more time. Damn, I thought, but I half smiled. I can do this. This is nothing.

  I stripped once more, rolled up my clothes, and hung my shoes around my neck again. The river was bigger and deeper here than at the spot I’d forded far upstream — this time the ice-cold water rose above my waist, nearly to my armpits. As before, I quickly lost feeling in my feet, but, mercifully, the river bottom was sandy and smooth, and I crossed without stumbling. As I emerged near the base of the bridge, steam swirled from my naked body into the golden light of morning. I dressed as best I could — this time there was no hope of tying my shoes — then ascended the bank and turned north onto Laurel Creek Road. I was miles from my truck — possibly farther than I’d been at any time since I made the fateful decision to bushwhack — but unless whoever had fired five shots at me happened to be cruising this stretch of road looking for me, I was in less peril now than at any time since I’d veered off the trail.

  I heard a car winding up the road. Stepping into the center of the pavement, I waved both arms to flag it down. The driver, a middle-aged woman, rolled her window down half an inch, eyeing me with deep suspicion.

  “I’m sorry to bother you,” I said, “but I’m wondering if you have a cell phone and if you’d be willing to make an emergency call for me?”

  “Yes, I have a cell phone.” From the dubious tone of her voice, I suspected she might call to report that a sinister stranger was trying to abduct her.

  “I was stranded in the mountains all night,” I explained, “I think maybe I’ve got some bruised ribs, and I expect the park rangers are starting a search for me along about now.”

  She took a closer look at me, and I could see her eyes taking in the scratches on my face, the rips in my clothes, and the exhaustion in my posture. Her eyes softened. “Oh, my stars,” she said, “get in the car.” She unlocked the passenger door, and I eased myself down into the seat. “I’ll take you to the ranger station at Cades Cove.”

  I hesitated. “I hate to impose, but my truck’s parked at Tremont, and I’m guessing that’s where they’ll start the search. Would you be willing to backtrack and take me to Tremont?” Pulling onto the shoulder, she made a quick U-turn. A moment later I heard a loud, staccato clacking; when the woman glanced at me in alarm and cranked the heater up to full blast, I realized the clacking was coming from my chattering teeth.

  “Thank you,” I said. “You’re very kind.”

  We reached the Tremont turnoff in five minutes or less, then made it to the end of the gravel road in another ten. Amazing, I thought. In fifteen minutes we’ve covered the same distance it took me twelve hours to crawl last night.

  At the turnaround loop, two park-police SUVs were idling beside my truck. As I got out of the car and hobbled toward the truck, a ranger emerged from one of the SUVs. He glanced at me briefly, and then his eyes widened. “It’s you,” he said.

  “Yes, it’s me.”

  CHAPTER 42

  “And you think someone took a shot at you?” The ranger, a bearded, middle-aged fellow named Stapleton, seemed skeptical, as if he suspected that my night in the mountains had played tricks on my mind. That wouldn’t have been an unreasonable thing for him to suspect, I realized. Ranger Stapleton was sitting behind the wheel of a Jeep Cherokee that was painted pea green — a color so hideous that the park service could be certain no car thief would ever be tempted to steal the vehicle. I sat in the Jeep’s passenger seat, the heater blasting blessedly hot.

  “Five shots,” I said, tipping aside the oxygen mask so as not to muffle the words. The mask had been handed to me by another ranger, a young paramedic named Nick, who was leaning through the Jeep’s passenger window with a stethoscope and a blood-pressure cuff. Before offering me oxygen and checking my vital signs, Nick had draped my shoulders with his own jacket, a bright yellow fleece. I took another whiff of oxygen, then added, “Maybe the shell cases are still there. I can show you where he was.”

  “You stay put till the ambulance gets here,” said Nick.

  “What ambulance? I don’t need an ambulance,” I squawked.

  “All ten of your fingers have frostnip,” Nick began. “And technically—”

  I interrupted him. “‘Frostnip’? Is that really a word?”

  “It is. A mild version of frostbite.”

  “That doesn’t sound like it requires an ambulance,” I protested.

  “Not on its own,” he responded, “but technically you’re still in hypothermia. Your temperature’s still below ninety-five degrees.”

  “Crank up the heat for another ten minutes and it’ll be ninety-six,” I argued.

  “Nick’s right,” said Stapleton. “You sit tight. Tell me where you think this shooter was, and we’ll take a look.”

  I pointed to the large footbridge that spanned the Middle Prong, then described taking the unmarked trail that led to the narrow, I-beam footbridge.

  He frowned. “That’s not actually a trail. Used to be, but not in years.”

  “It used to be a pretty nice one,” I said, “judging by the view I had of Cades Cove just before I started bushwhacking.”

  He whistled. “Hell, you were way up Thunderhead Mountain. No wonder we couldn’t find you last night. You got yourself good and lost, didn’t you?”

  I felt an absurd need to defend myself. “Actually, I had a pretty fair idea where I was,” I said, and it was true, if you defined the term “pretty fair idea” rather broadly. “I came out on Laurel Creek Road right where I thought I would. It just took me a while to get there.”

  “That’s some rough terrain you crossed in the dark. Cold night, too. You’re lucky you made it down alive.”

  “When that guy was shooting at me, I felt lucky to make it up alive,” I pointed out. “He was on this side of the stream, ten or twenty yards downstream from the I-beam bridge.”

  “Did you get a good look at him?”

  “No. He was hidden by the trees.”

  “But you saw enough to know that it was a man?”

  “Actually, no,” I admitted. “I just assumed it was a man.”

  Stapleton frowned at me for assuming. “Any idea who might want to shoot at you, and why?”

  I had a very clear idea about that, in fact, but I wasn’t at liberty to mention Ray Sinclair or the FBI investigati
on. “I’ve helped put some people in prison over the years,” I said. “Maybe one of them just got out. Or maybe it was that student I gave an F to yesterday.”

  Nick laughed, and that made me smile. But my smile evaporated when I saw a black Ford sedan pull in to the parking area and Steve Morgan get out.

  Fifteen years before Steve had been an undergraduate student in my osteology class. Now he was a TBI agent. I’d kept in loose touch with him during the ten years or so since he’d joined the TBI; we’d even worked together briefly on the Cooke County corruption case. Now, though, I was a suspect, and that put a distinct damper on our relationship. As he approached the park-service vehicle and flashed his badge, his face looked grim and sad, and I was pretty sure mine didn’t look any happier. Stapleton got out and exchanged a few words with him, and then the ranger spoke to Nick. Both rangers stepped away to give us privacy.

  Steve leaned down and spoke through the open window. “Dr. Brockton, I hear you spent a long, cold night in the mountains.”

  “Hello, Steve. I did indeed. How’d you know I was here?”

  He didn’t answer the question. “I need to talk to you about something. Let’s go sit in my car.” He opened the door for me, and I followed him to the black TBI vehicle. I halfway expected him to put me in the back, but instead he held the front passenger door for me. The car’s interior smelled of spilled coffee.

  “The ranger also says you think someone tried to shoot you.”

  “I don’t just think it, Steve. Someone did try to shoot me.”

  “Any idea who, and why?”

  It was the same question Stapleton had just asked, but this time I couldn’t deflect it with a joke. “I can’t tell you, Steve.”

  “Because you don’t have any idea?”

  “Because I can’t.”

  “Dr. Brockton, this is difficult. I need you to tell me what’s going on here.”

  I was just flipping a mental coin — did the circumstances justify breaking my pledge of secrecy to the FBI? — when the hand of fate snatched the coin from midair: Another government-issue Ford pulled up alongside Morgan’s, and out clambered Special Agent Ben Rankin. He showed Steve his badge, then asked for a word in private. They walked fifty yards down the gravel road, then turned around and walked back up to the vehicles.