Trial by Ice and Fire

by Clinton McKinzie

  Once I get out of the way, the sheriff greets the mountain legend formally but with obvious respect. Cali, having heard his voice, comes into the entry hall behind her to embrace him. He stoops down to return her hug with his long, corded arms wrapping around her waist. While doing so he gives me another gray-eyed look. I notice that one of his pupils looks enlarged, and I wonder if his aneurysm is bleeding.

  The cramped living room is packed to capacity with the five of us in it. The sheriff had given up her chair for Laughlin and squeezed in with Cali and me on the couch. McGee managed to lean forward from his deep chair to shake the hardman's hand when Cali introduced them. Lester is nowhere to be seen. He'd left with a hiss when we returned to the room. Like me, especially after this morning, he's probably not a fan of crowded spaces.

  Cali tells the story of what had happened on Mt. Wister again for Laughlin's benefit. He listens without expression on his sun- and age-etched face. During her recital he looks toward me a couple of times, frowning. I find myself looking away each time—especially when she mentions the pit and the sugary pellets of snow we'd found and ignored. As before, when reporting to McGee and the sheriff, Cali makes no mention of the fact that I'd assumed it was my fugitive brother trailing behind us.

  “You got any idea who it was?” Laughlin asks me when she finishes.

  “Yeah. There's some crazy kid—a schizophrenic—named Myron Armalli with a history of stalking. Do you know him?”

  Laughlin shakes his head.

  “He grew up near Mom's ranch,” Cali says, “but I didn't really know him. Then he said some things to me in court not long ago, when I was prosecuting him for a misdemeanor. He said I would regret oppressing him or something like that.”

  The sheriff adds, “He was trouble as a kid. Burned some horses, we think, and bothered a girl in his school. He worked ski patrol on the mountain for a while but was fired for being unreliable. Since then he's been in and out of our jail, for causing public disturbances and things like that. We think he's squatting up on some land his family used to own near Ms. Reese's property.”

  “He's probably had some avalanche training,” I say. “Working with the ski patrol.”

  Both the sheriff and Laughlin nod thoughtfully. “Tell us again what you saw,” the sheriff says.

  I close my eyes for a second and try to picture the distant figure I'd seen. “He was maybe a half-mile behind us, crouching down near where our tracks would have been,” I explain. “All I could see was a dark-colored parka and a backpack. I think the backpack was darker, but the light was bad and it could have been green, dark blue, or even red. Then the clouds came down again and we couldn't see him anymore. The next indication I had that someone else was out there was when we heard the shots, which sounded like they were coming from below. Maybe a little ways up on the mountain opposite us.”

  I can hear the three shots cracking again in my ears. And then the explosion before the mountainside gave way beneath my skis. Twin droplets of cold sweat run down my flanks and I rub my forehead with my sleeve.

  “Do you have any idea what caliber?” the sheriff asks.

  “No. Not really. It was echoing all over the place. And I was more worried about one of us getting hit, or . . .”

  We're all silent for a moment. I imagine them imagining me buried beneath all that snow. No one's looking my way now but Laughlin.

  The hardman, in his slow, gruff voice, fills the silence by telling some avalanche stories of his own. He recounts the time his tent and partner had been swept off Mt. Robson in the middle of a storm, just seconds after he stepped outside to answer a midnight call of nature. Another concise story begins on Mt. Logan in the Yukon but shifts without warning to another place and year. He seems to be getting confused, starting to ramble. His words pick up a slight slur at their tail ends.

  The second story dies away without ever ending. Another awkward pause follows. Cali is staring at him, her green eyes damp and shiny.

  The sheriff says to McGee, “Bill Laughlin is a town treasure. Literally. He used to give a slide show every winter, and I swear, half the town would turn up. Climbers and sane people alike, just to hear him talk.” Smiling, she says to Laughlin, “You should do that again this year.”

  But that's not an inspired idea. As fit as he looks, with his corded arms showing beneath his shirt's short sleeves, and the way his lean waist doesn't really need the piece of old rope he uses for a belt, it's pretty clear that his mind is being affected by the ballooning vein within. It's invading his thought processes and his memories. I feel bad for him. It would be better for a legend like him to go out in a blaze of glory on a high peak.

  I've been unconsciously massaging my own neck and upper back, leaning forward with my elbows on my knees. I notice I'm doing it only when Cali tries to take over. Her hands knead at the twin triangles of sore muscle between my shoulders and neck. With a jolt of apprehension I feel McGee's eyes on me. And Laughlin's. And the sheriff's. All of them speculating.

  I shrug off Cali's hands, saying, “I'm all right. Really.”

  Laughlin stands up and slaps his lean thighs, like he's somehow aware that his speech had become rambling. He makes for the door without much of a good-bye. I follow him out, taking with me the folder that has Armalli's booking photo in it. Cali doesn't come after us.

  “I appreciate you coming by,” I tell him. “I know Cali does, too.”

  “No worries,” he replies distractedly as we cross the lawn toward the gate between the tall hedges.

  “Can you hold up just a second? I've got something I want to show you.”

  Bill Laughlin stops with one hand on the gate. When he turns to me his lips are locked tight into a thin white line, and there's a faint flush coloring the leathery skin on his face. He looks back at the house instead of at me.

  Not wanting to delay him or cause him any further embarrassment, I hurriedly open the folder and pull out the photo of Myron Armalli. I hand it to him. “Have you seen this guy before?”

  Laughlin does little more than glance at it. “This the guy who's been after Cali?”

  “Yeah, I'm pretty sure—almost positive. Do you recognize him?”

  Laughlin glances down at it again and pushes it back at me. “Don't think so. Looks like a hundred kids around here.”

  “Think back to the night you chased off the guy who was trying to get in Cali's window. Could this be him?”

  He takes another look down at the photo in my hands and starts to shake his head. But then he stops. His calloused fingertips rub against the back of my hand as he takes back the photo. “Wait a minute. Maybe I have seen him before. A couple of times when I've been walking around the neighborhood, this guy's been sitting in an old pickup. Just sitting.”

  “Are you sure?” I ask, feeling myself getting excited. Feeling, in a way, as if I'm putting on my armor, getting girded for battle. Weak as it is, this is the first bit of solid evidence that will stand up in court. If Laughlin lives that long. And if this ends up in court—if Armalli lives that long. “When have you seen him? And how many times?”

  But now Laughlin goes back to shaking his head. He hands me the picture for the second time. “Couldn't say. I've seen him around, is all. I live only a couple of streets back, so I'm walking around here a lot. Always assumed this guy just lived on the street.”

  I give him a card with my cell-phone number written on it. “I'd appreciate it if you'd keep an eye out for him and call me if you see him.”

  Laughlin nods. “I'll do that.” He turns to go.

  I hesitate, feeling bad for him and feeling embarrassed for greedily having put Cali in danger this morning, then add, “If you ever want to do any climbing, let me know. I'd love to tie into a rope with you sometime. It'd give me something to brag about.”

  He laughs shortly and looks at the ground. “I'm not much good on the rock anymore. Too damned old. But I still can hike. Maybe I'll belay you sometime. I'll let you know.”

  He opens the
gate then turns to latch it between us. He looks steadier now, out on the street. I flatter myself by thinking that maybe my words have reminded him of his former strength. After taking two steps, he turns back to me.

  “You look out for her, you hear? She's a lot like her mother. Gives off a scent or something, you know? Makes guys go crazy. Do the damnedest things.”

  I walk back in just in time to hear the sheriff asking Cali, “Do you know what's the matter with him?”

  “An aneurysm. It's in his brain.”

  “Oh God. I'm sorry, Cali. Is it bad?”

  Cali nods. “The worst.”

  “Is he getting treated? I don't imagine a man like that carries insurance.” Even in his youth, with parachuting into forest fires as a profession and an avocation of putting up risky new routes on lonely alpine peaks, Bill Laughlin would have found it hard to get insurance.

  “No,” Cali says quietly. “It's not because of money, but because of the aneurysm's location in his head. They can't operate on it. Once it starts bleeding then it's not likely to stop.”

  “Let me know if there's anything I can do,” the sheriff says, looking genuinely sorrowful. She looks like she really would do something if she could.

  “The only thing anyone can do is get my mom to be a little nicer to him,” Cali says. “That's really about all he wants.” On the hike in this morning Cali had talked about him. About how when she was cleaning his house once she'd found a scrapbook secreted under the kitchen sink. It had been articles about and pictures of Alana. Pictures of her and Bill and Patrick in those early days. The three of them smiling with their arms around one another.

  A weird thought strikes me. Am I going to keep a scrapbook about Rebecca Hersh and the six months she loved me? Am I going to spend the next forty years clipping and concealing the articles she's written?

  I take the seat Laughlin had deserted. It's across the coffee table from Cali. McGee is still slouched in the other chair and his eyes are closed. Although he and Laughlin are probably close to the same age, it's hard to believe that McGee—emphysemic, diabetic, obese, and alcoholic—will outlive the still-muscular and tough-looking hardman. My boss's ragged breath is deep and sonorous, and I wonder if he might be asleep.

  I tell them about Laughlin's tentative identification of Armalli. McGee's eyes remain shut.

  Making an effort to lift the mood, Cali asks in a bright voice, “So, it looks like ol' Myron is my anonymous suitor. And Anton's avalanche-safety instructor. What are we going to do about it?”

  “I'm going to go get him.”

  Something in my words or tone has everyone looking at me sharply.

  I explain how I'd gone to his parents' old property yesterday, and that I, too, believe he's camping out somewhere around there. The sheriff confirms that she's heard the same, and that he's wanted for various hunting violations. I don't mention the way I'd sensed his presence, and how I'd nearly belly-crawled back to my truck through the dry meadow grass. I'm not afraid of him now—the only thing I'm afraid of is what I'm going to do to him.

  Then I'm reminded of the one thing I'm still very much afraid of. McGee brings it up, opening his eyes. “Just make sure, lad . . . you're back in time for dinner. . . . It's at nine o'clock, I understand.”

  Rebecca and her father must have called him and told him that they are coming to town. I just hope like hell they didn't go so far as to invite him to join us. Having her father there will be surreal enough.

  The sheriff, too, is studying me. From the worried expression on her face it appears that she's not all that confident in what she sees. “Why don't I have some of my officers go out there and search for him? It might take a day or two, but we could set up a full-blown search of the area. Now that you're apparently the victim of an attempted murder, Agent Burns, perhaps you might not be the best man for the job.”

  Before I can protest, McGee says, “Don't worry, Sheriff. He's not going to go cowboying . . . out there by himself.”

  “I'm not sure what choice I have,” I add. “We need to pick him up now, and Jim has to stay here and watch Cali, in case Armalli's still on the move.” Besides, I really want to go after Armalli by myself. I don't know if I'm really capable of hurting him, but it will be interesting to find out. If he resists arrest, hey, shit happens. Everyone thinks I crossed the line long ago anyway.

  “You're not going out there alone,” McGee repeats.

  “Then how about you, fat man? Want to go sneaking through the woods tonight?”

  An evil grin parts his beard. “No, not me, lad. I've got a better idea.”

  TWENTY-FOUR

  TO GET TO the former Armalli property, we have to drive north through the broad valley of Jackson Hole and then keep going all the way past the hamlet of Moran Junction before we're even halfway there. On the left the sun is descending onto its Wyoming bed of nails, those sharp snow-covered spires. The sight of them makes the Rat stir in his cage—the avalanche had knocked the little guy down but apparently it hadn't knocked him out. He still wants to get high. On the right we pass the entrance to Alana Reese's ranch, which is unmarked but for two enormous log posts supporting an ornate metal gate in between.

  At the junction, where to the left the Skillet Glacier beckons to me with its vertical handle running all the way up the summit of Mt. Moran, we turn right onto Highway 287. A sign beyond the town reads, “Fire Danger,” and beneath it is a half-circle chart. The needle points all the way over to the right, indicating the word “Extreme.”

  “No shit,” Charles Wokowski comments as he looks out the passenger's-side window. “I've never seen it so dry this early in the season.”

  Passing the sign, we begin the long circle around the backside of Alana Reese's property and the Elk Refuge.

  The drive seems to take a lot longer than it did yesterday afternoon, when I was alone but for Mungo. Except for his one comment, Wokowski and I don't speak at all until I turn off the paved highway and onto the dirt Forest Service road.

  “I can't believe you called me for this,” he says, shaking his big head in wonder.

  I don't say anything.

  “Called me!” He sort of half laughs, still turning his head back and forth and watching me. “You got balls, QuickDraw. I'll give you that much, man.”

  I grip the wheel as the Pig rattles over some washboard ruts, the rusty iron squealing in protest. “Don't call me that.”

  We bounce along, passing numerous offshoots, some of which have been blocked with big boulders to keep redneck four-wheelers from tearing up the meadows. It isn't easy to spot the little numbered plaque that marks the main track in the thickening twilight. This place is a living maze. In the dusk it appears completely different from what I remember of yesterday's aborted search. I slow almost to a stop a couple of times to study the topographical map spread on my lap before creeping on.

  Wokowski decides to provoke me some more. “It's a pretty nice, accurate name for a guy who's inclined to use his gun. I'm surprised you don't like it.”

  We aren't going all that fast, maybe ten miles an hour, but he's cut in half by his lap belt—all the old truck has—when I stomp on the brake and we skid in the dirt. It causes him to slap his meaty palms on the dashboard and nearly smash his face on the cracked vinyl.

  “Let's get something straight, asshole,” I say, twisting in my seat to face him directly. “What you've read or heard is bullshit. That was no execution. I was jumped.”

  Staring back at me, his eyes as unreadable as ever, Wokowski asks, “You sure 'bout that?”

  I want to snarl, or, better yet, butt him on the bridge of his nose with my forehead. But my voice stays low and even. “Yeah. I'm sure. I got very, very lucky.”

  “Three guys. All armed and waiting.” He purses his lips and lets out a low, derisive whistle. The air moves over my face, carrying the fruity scent of his gum.

  I could explain that there was no aiming involved in that abandoned ranch house in Cheyenne. No thinking even—j
ust sheer terror and fury and my gun banging in my hand, the Rat shrieking away like it was the biggest thrill the little beast had ever had. But I don't waste my breath.

  “Like I said, I was very lucky. Especially since none of them were elderly, handcuffed, or spread on the hood of my patrol car.”

  Now—for the first time—there is something readable in his eyes. The dark pupils within the brown irises seem to contract until they are fine, sharp points. Like daggers dipped in poison. His breath comes faster, too. It blows on my face in short, fruity blasts. The windows of the truck must be close to exploding from the pressure inside.

  This could be it, I think. What we've been working toward for the past two days.

  Wokowski exhales a hard breath that almost causes me to leap at him. Then he leans back in the seat, tilts back his head, and looks through the windshield out at the sky. It's cobalt between the trees. Almost night. He sighs a second time.

  “Okay. I fucked up,” he says.

  After a minute he adds, “And I deserved that, because the truth is, I lost it. Not as bad as I could have”—here he glances at me significantly, not sure whether he should believe my denials regarding the shooting of the gangbangers—“but I fucking lost it. And I'm going to pay for it, too. Maybe get suspended. Maybe get charged, too, when the sheriff finishes her investigation and after this whole thing gets exposed at trial.”

  “If it goes to trial. I hear the victim, I mean the defendant, is having a hard time walking down stairs these days.”

  Wokowski looks over at me again, slower this time. But he still doesn't explode. Instead he grins at me. A sick, lopsided sort of grin. “You think I did that? You're wrong, Burns. The guy's a fucking drunk. I was nowhere near him last night. I messed up enough once—I'm not going to do it again.”

  I stare back at him, scrutinizing his broad face and eyes for any sign of deception. But his gaze is steady and his expression neutral. The words sound genuine. For some reason I find myself close to believing him, against my will, or at least willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. The way I wish everyone would do for me. The way he seems to be doing for me now.