Trapline

by Mark Stevens

  Maybe it was.

  His face was covered in blood.

  Most of his shirt was saturated in blood.

  His eyes were closed. His mouth quivered. His body shook.

  “Damn it,” said Colin. Pissed-off.

  The man was on his side, facing away.

  “Blankets,” said Colin, already on the run to Merlin.

  Allison’s heart ached. Her mind flashed back to the wet, sleek dogs she’d seen at the camp. Then the howls and the long quiet.

  His head looked like he’d smacked a windshield. If the head gash was only to the scalp and no deeper, he might have a chance. Head wounds were notorious bleeders. The worst of his wounds appeared to be right below his rib cage.

  The third spot was the other side of his top thigh. His jeans had been ripped neatly by two punctures. Blood oozed in a soggy mire.

  There was no way of knowing if there was damage underneath. Allison could only hope that he had instinctively rolled to put the weight on his good side, to minimize the pain from added pressure.

  “Keep breathing,” she said. “Stay here, stay here, stay with me.”

  Maybe somewhere deep down he’d register the human contact.

  The thought that dogs had been trained for this kind of manhunt—and that the dog handlers could do this to another human being …

  Fuckers.

  She felt her innards wobble, fought the urge to hurl. Her stomach was empty.

  Colin was back, blanket in hand.

  “We have to get him warm,” he said. “Fast.”

  It was hard to imagine moving something that appeared so fragile, but Colin was right. It had to be done.

  “Let’s get his feet elevated,” said Colin.

  There was a small voice inside Allison that whispered “hopeless, hopeless” but Colin’s actions rang a note of hope.

  “Look what I found,” said Colin.

  He held up a stick the length of a bread knife. The tip came to a point that would give a gem cutter pride.

  “Looks like our guy might have found a way to fight back,” said Colin.

  The stick was red and bloody.

  There was hope.

  thirty-eight:

  thursday morning

  The inside of his Camry felt as warm as a walk-in freezer in Siberia in the long lonely days of March. It was August in the Flat Tops Wilderness, or at least smack on the border of the designated wilderness, and Bloom simply had not calculated how cold the inside of a car could get sans heater, at elevation.

  Chilly? Sure. He could have handled a chill. He had found a light jacket in the trunk and curled up on the back seat. He thought that would be enough to fend off whatever punch the night might throw. Instead, the car magnified the cold, about the same as it might do with sunshine on a hot summer day in an asphalt parking lot in the city.

  Now the sun was up. The broad, beautiful meadow was coming to life. The temperature might not provide any relief for an hour two, but relief was on the way.

  Three fingers tingled with numbness. His chest shuddered of its own accord.

  Dawn told him what he already knew. Trudy’s house and Allison’s A-frame, tucked off in the corner of the field, were empty. He’d knocked on both doors at 11 p.m., when he had arrived. Then, he had hopes he would have perhaps woken Trudy. It would have been a tad awkward, but Trudy would have taken him in. His plan had been to interview Alfredo, maybe get lucky enough to chat with Allison, or perhaps catch her where they could talk, really connect. These were G-rated fantasies involving whiskey and beer and some genuine bonding. That was the dream.

  It didn’t happen.

  His breath formed wispy clouds that quickly evaporated. He yawned so hard his eyes watered. His breath and body odor had curdled into an inhospitable stench. His neck throbbed from the awkward sleeping positions. Each position had held its own tortures, a hard spot in the bench seat or a cramped place where he had to wedge his foot. He hadn’t really slept.

  And he was in the wrong place. The trip up had been useless.

  Where was everyone?

  Where would Trudy have taken Alfredo?

  Why hadn’t he turned around last night and headed back down the hill? He’d be waking up in his bed and he wouldn’t be giving Coogan a fresh chance to question his ability to set priorities.

  Bloom started his car. It answered with a tinny cackle. The mechanical sound in this serene meadow sounded like a Harley revving for a drag race.

  7:47 a.m. He must have fallen asleep—somehow.

  Bloom backed the Camry to the road. He remembered the stables and barn another mile or two west. Maybe he’d take a quick cruise around up there, see if anyone was stirring. If not, he’d take the long drive down to Glenwood and get back on the rails.

  Bloom’s cell phone sounded. The number looked familiar.

  “Hello?” he said. He barely recognized his own raspy voice.

  “Duncan, it’s Trudy.”

  The signal was weak and choppy.

  “Am I calling too early?” she said.

  “No,” he said.

  “Where are you?” she said.

  Bloom looked around. A shot of sun nicked the top of Allison’s A-frame.

  “Why? What’s going on?” he said.

  A pause. Too long. Bloom thought maybe the signal was dropped.

  “Two men came to my house last night. They were after Alfredo. We got out and followed them.”

  “Jesus,” said Bloom.

  “I know,” said Trudy.

  “They didn’t see you?”

  “Don’t think so,” said Trudy. “But here’s the deal. Alfredo wants to bolt for home. Like, now. If you want to talk with him—and I’m barely hanging onto him by a thread—can you get here soon?”

  Bloom started a one-handed, three-point turn. “Maybe,” he said. “Where are you now?”

  Bloom gave the Camry some juice. He felt like the lone kid at camp who thought it was time for arts and crafts when everyone else had hiked the half-mile down to the lake for swimming.

  “We’re outside the Hotel Colorado,” said Trudy. “On the west side.”

  A massive buck, straight off the insurance company logo, stood in the field off the road, its head up and chest broad and proud. His antlers were so large Bloom wondered how he held his head up. The sight took his breath away. In the sun, the deer’s tawny hide made brown the new red.

  Bloom had the car moving at a clip that was slightly reckless, especially given the one-handed steering. In spots the washboard grooves threatened to shake him off the road.

  “Everyone okay?” said Bloom.

  “Well … sort of …”

  Words from space.

  The line went black-hole dead. He was holding a rock to his ear. The Camry flew up over a short, blind rise and it was a damn good thing nobody was coming from the other way.

  thirty-nine:

  thursday morning

  “Lost him,” said Trudy.

  She dialed him back, immediately heard: “Hi, this is Duncan, leave a message…”

  “Where is he?” said Jerry. “Did he say?”

  Jerry was in the front seat with her. Alfredo Loya was in the back with Juan Diaz.

  “He didn’t say,” said Trudy. “For some reason, it didn’t sound close.”

  “But he’s coming?” said Jerry.

  “I think so,” said Trudy. She wanted Duncan badly, to change up the vibe in the dark car, full of brooding and worry. “But he knows where we are.”

  They had chosen the Hotel Colorado, a grand old operation built in the 1890s. It offered hide-in-plain sight protection and it sat north of the pedestrian bridge. They had found a spot to park where they could see anyone coming from three directions, overlooking the corner of the hot springs complex.

&
nbsp; All of Trudy’s senses were on high alert, the lack of sleep a contributing factor. They had been the followers, not the followed, but she was worried, shaken.

  “What now?” said Jerry.

  “I’m not sure,” said Trudy. “Wait.”

  “And you still don’t want to the report the break-in?”

  “And that will get straight back to the whole deal with Alfredo and him staying at my place and it gets messy in a hurry.”

  “Plus, you’re a terrible liar,” said Jerry.

  “Thank you, I think,” said Trudy. “I’d have to tell them everything.”

  “Including why Alfredo was with you.”

  In the back seat, Alfredo mumbled something to Diaz. Alfredo looked strung out but his eyes were busy. He made no pretense about looking over his shoulder every now and then. Diaz and Alfredo talked for a minute, low and fast and on top of each other. Diaz’ tone sounded argumentative.

  “He asks for a ride close to Riverside Meadows or he’ll walk from here,” said Diaz. “He would rather not have to walk across the bridge and right through town.”

  “And then what?” said Trudy.

  “And then he sees his girlfriend and baby and then he leaves,” said Diaz.

  Trudy turned sideways so she could look directly at Diaz, who was sitting behind Jerry. “Leaves?”

  “Heads back,” said Diaz. “Home. All the way home to Mexico.”

  If Alfredo took off now, this would have all been a waste.

  “Can he wait for the reporter?” said Trudy. “At least?”

  Diaz turned to Alfredo and translated.

  Alfredo popped open the back door, climbed out and shut the door behind him. He walked to the intersection to cross the road in front of the hotel. He didn’t wait for the light but jogged between oncoming cars, one of which felt it necessary to deliver an irritating honk.

  “Can’t say I blame him,” said Jerry. “Not sure I’d stick around waiting for another chance to be yanked off the streets and taken to some jail.”

  Alfredo headed down the steps to the pedestrian bridge. He didn’t look back.

  Trudy gave Jerry a look, but he didn’t seem to notice. Why didn’t he see the bigger picture?

  forty:

  thursday morning

  He was clinging hard to the non-dust version of himself, but Allison couldn’t be sure.

  Every minute was precious. He’d lost a lot of blood.

  Each breath came with a gasp and shudder. He was unconscious or deep in shock. His forehead sprouted beads of sweat.

  Allison made sure the blanket stayed loosely tucked around him. If he was about to go to his grave with the big questions unanswered, maybe he was getting close to the details now.

  They hadn’t really decided who would go. Colin was up on his horse without discussion. Colin would climb high as fast as possible, get a cell signal, call for a rescue and call the state division of wildlife, National Forest, county sheriff and anyone else interested in a case of attempted murder and illegal hunting with dogs. There was a helicopter based out of Aspen and if she remembered right Rio Blanco County Search and Rescue had access to one, too.

  They would need some luck, starting with a quick cell signal.

  Ninety minutes since Colin left. Maybe right about now he would be talking to someone, maybe the help was already on the way.

  Maybe.

  Maybe.

  Too many maybes.

  Waiting sucked.

  Allison left her patient for mini scouting missions. Two minutes, three minutes. The longest was five. She was looking for a small clearing and found one that would work.

  The spot was flat, round and clogged with blown-down trees. On her second reconnaissance, this time with matches and a starter stick, she had a fire going in a safe spot.

  Locator smoke.

  She shuttled between her patient and the fire, building the fire on each trip until it was in bonfire category, about chest high and as wide as a dinner table for eight.

  She rushed armloads of old pine needles, still damp from last night’s rain, to the fire to generate thick white smoke.

  Check on her patient, chop some branches, jog to fire.

  Build it up.

  Repeat.

  She fell into a rhythm, took a break every other trip for water and something to munch.

  On one round-trip, her eye spotting a head-high branch thick with dead stuff and looking bone dry and fire-ready, she found elk scat and, nearby, a whole bedding area where elk had taken siesta. The scat was fresh, most likely from that morning and no earlier.

  “Just fine,” she said to the scattering of poop. “Be that way.”

  It wouldn’t be good if the nurse collapsed. She wasn’t consciously hungry or thirsty, but knew that her own system was cranked up and not necessarily taking care of its own basic needs.

  Every trip back, she expected to find he had taken his last breath. On each circuit, she approached with that idea, that the rescue would become recovery and that her patient had taken that last step off the stairs and was gone.

  But he was stubborn. He was a fighter. Shock was a fascinating feature of the human system, the ability to shut down every other sensory intake and focus relentlessly on righting the ship.

  If he recovered, this time between attack and waking up in a brightly lit hospital bed would be relegated to a fuzzy, near-mystical storyline that would take shape over time, the result of bits and pieces of what he truly remembered melded together with fragments and details from the perspective of others.

  She knew that score.

  Her patient’s brain was now hibernating. It was doing itself a favor. It might be deleting files from before the attack. Some survivors of spectacular crashes and collisions recalled nothing of the moments that led up to impact, even though they watched it all happen.

  That was another reason Kerry London could go fuck off. For him to think that she would be a reliable narrator of her own story, after years of processing, was ludicrous. And for her to pretend to recount those events as if they were crisp photographs or HD video, when in fact they were now a set of feelings combined with the fuzzy flash frames of memory, was absurd.

  But now Allison chided herself. All she had to do was tell Kerry London “no thanks” a dozen times, smiling the whole while, until he got the message. The result would have been the same as letting him witness her meltdown. And tantrum.

  Her punishment, of course, was to relive the accident. The turmoil she had added to the conversation with Kerry London transformed the sleepy, distant memories into vivid colors and smells. The images had climbed down off the high, dusty shelf and come down for a party on the living room floor, as if the accident had happened yesterday, without the shock or the salt water or the hospital stay. Her uncontrolled thoughts—who was in charge here anyway?—didn’t run to the aftermath, those odd minutes after the crash when they were suddenly back on earth and the fuselage belly-flopped oddly and ripped apart, jettisoning its contents and cargo and passengers in a wicked game of seat-assignment fate. The thirty-one who died were concentrated in a section just ahead of Allison’s row. Allison didn’t know precisely what had happened other than she was one of eighty-eight survivors suddenly swimming and bobbing and she understood instantly that her attachment and connection to this earth dangled by one brittle hair. And she simultaneously knew, given that she wasn’t one of the ones screaming or floating upside down, that she’d never be that fortunate again.

  All these thoughts, of course, benefitted from years of retrospection. She was now able to layer into the scene in her head the thoughts she hoped she had in the moment. Because the moment didn’t contain thoughts or decision-making or anything that would truly bolster Kerry London’s book. The moment only contained a dark whirl of numbness and bewilderment where logic was an outcast.

>   Allison’s uncontrolled thoughts focused mostly on the few airborne seconds when they all knew in their guts that something wasn’t right. The moment was pure, utter uncertainty. The moment was a collective gulp, coated in dread. They were all so utterly trapped. Optimism had been sucked from the cabin. The laws of physics dictated what was next. And the savvy, perhaps, of a couple unknown pilots up front.

  Allison stood, took a deep breath—stared at one particular towering spruce to make it more real. She had no idea how long she’d been gone. Now, she was the unknown pilot and her patient depended on her talents. Allison banished the accident from her thoughts, concentrated on the moment, her current mission.

  Two hours.

  Three.

  Her routines settled in. The fire was now a hungry beast, pumping up flurries of white smoke in a shaft so straight and thick it would have worked fine as a column for the ancient Greeks. Smoke shot from the roaring blast furnace like it was on a mission.

  There was half a chance the dog runners would see it and she hoped they might be having a what-the-fuck moment. If they were anywhere in the main valley, they likely would have spotted it, but perhaps they were also long gone, racing their injured dog or dogs for help.

  It was at least a mile or more from the fire to their camp, most of it open tundra west and northwest. Their camp was closer to the edge of the forest. She was in much deeper, although once or twice she pondered leaving her patient for an extended scouting mission straight north, to see how close. But it was too risky and unnecessary.

  Her own what-the-fuck meter spiked past the red zone. The mountain lion scenario hadn’t made sense, but this?

  Her patient had been the prey.

  The dogs were the weapon.

  A million what ifs might be out there to fill in the background, but Allison didn’t care. Around the world, hell had more names than there were for good but she would march deep into each one in order to track down Mr. Muttonchops and his oversized buddy. Maybe the dogs had died and the men were digging their graves.