Chattering Blue Jay

by Paty Jager

  Opting to take his time moving closer, he led the animals along the green path. Dog walked in the trickle of water. “You have sore paws, my friend?” Hawke asked softly and reach out to pat the dog on the head.

  A sound caught both their attention. The steady drone of a generator meant there was someone up ahead.

  Hawke tied the horse and mule to a downed log and continued on foot with Dog at his heels. The drone grew in volume. The noise the machine made would make it hard for a person to hear anyone approaching.

  A camouflage net covered a small wooden hut near the base of the ridge wall. The green path of the spring water went alongside the hut.

  From all appearances, Ms. Cox had planned well ahead to hide out at her uncle’s mine. If this was his mine. He wondered if she even knew the land had reverted back to the state. From the look of the hut, it had been maintained after his death.

  She must have carried or used a pack animal to bring in fuel for the generator and the supplies she’d need. Had she done it alone? She’d called Sheridan by his first name. Had they planned it all together and he’d become a threat rather than an accomplice?

  Hawke motioned for Dog to sit. They had a good position to keep an eye on the place and make sure it was Ms. Cox before he called in Mathews and the authorities.

  His stomach growled. He’d left all the food and water back with Jack and Horse. Dog glanced up at him as if he, too, wondered at Hawke’s not grabbing at least water even though the animal could easily lap at the water trickling by them ten feet away.

  The generator died. Still no sign of anyone. The trajectory Mathews had been taking, he should have shown up by now.

  Hawke waited another thirty minutes after the generator died before slowly moving toward the hut in a flanking pattern. He didn’t plan to walk right up to the door. He’d go toward it from the side.

  There wasn’t a window on the side he crept toward. Veering a bit to his right, he checked to see if there was a back entrance. Nope. It looked like the only way in or out was the front door. At the corner, he duck-walked to stay under the window. With one hand, he motioned Dog to stay behind him. He raised his arm, knocking up as high as he could reach on the door. If the woman had a gun, this would be a good way to tell.

  No shots rang out.

  Scuffling sounds and a muffled voice piqued his awareness of his surroundings. He pressed his ear to the wall. It was definitely a muffled cry for help.

  On hyper-alert, he gave a yank on the rope sticking out the small hole in the door and shoved.

  The door swung open.

  Nothing.

  The muffled voice grew louder.

  He popped up to look through the window rather than walk through the door. Mathews was tied to a chair in the middle of the hut. No one stood in the dark corners.

  Hawke hurried in and yanked the bandanna out of the deputy’s mouth. “What happened?”

  “She knocked me in the back of the head with something before I even saw this place. Must have dragged me in and tied me up.” Rage or embarrassment reddened the man’s face.

  “Was the generator running when you approached?” Hawke was trying to work out a time line and where the woman might be.

  A loud angry bray rang through the air. He knew exactly where the woman was.

  “Fetch Jack!” Hawke ordered Dog. The animal flew out of the hut.

  Hawke quickly cut the cord around Mathews. “She’s taking off with my horse,” he threw over his shoulder as he ran out the door.

  The thorny bushes whipped his hands and face as he ran, not looking for an easy path straight for his animals. He leaped over downed logs, thinking only of his horse and mule. They, like Dog, were family.

  He stopped so fast, his upper body leaned forward. He caught himself before he fell on his face.

  Dog had Jack’s rein in his mouth, holding the horse who stared at the body on the ground in front of his contrary mule.

  Hawke was happy to see his animals safe but fearful Horse may have killed the woman. He walked up to the animal, crooning words of his ancestors to calm the agitated mule. Horse’s eyes were wide and his nostrils flared as he stared at the body, nearly touching his hooves.

  “Easy boy, back up,” Hawke reached out slowly, grasping the lead rope and inching the mule backwards. The end of the lead rope pulled out from under Ms. Cox’s body.

  She moaned.

  Thank the Creator the woman was alive! Hawke tied Horse to a log ten feet from the woman as Mathews appeared, scraping and thrashing through the brush.

  “She alive?” he asked between gasps of breath.

  “She moaned.” Hawke knelt beside the woman. “Call on the radio and get a helicopter in here to pick her up.”

  “I don’t—”

  “The radio is in the pack box on the right side.” Hawke felt the woman’s arms. She moaned when his fingers touched a knot he was pretty sure was a broken bone.

  “Ummm...” Mathews stood beside Mule, who had his head turned, his teeth bared, and long ears laid back.

  Hawke stood and retrieved the radio for the deputy. He returned to the woman, probing her sides and legs. It appeared to only be her arm that was broke. But he didn’t like the fact she wasn’t waking up. Blood appeared to be seeping into the dirt under her head.

  Mathews called in their location and the need for Air Medical Transport.

  “Help me roll her over. She’s got a broken arm.” Hawke held the side with the injured arm, and they rolled her to her back. As he’d feared. She’d landed with her temple on a rock. It had cut the skin, which was bleeding.

  He grabbed his First Aid kit from the pack box and went to work wrapping the wound without moving her head any more than he had too. When he finished that he placed his jacket over her upper body to keep her warm.

  “What do we do now?” Mathews asked.

  “We wait for the helicopter. And you tell me exactly what happened.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Hawke watched as the Air Idaho Life-Flight helicopter lifted into the air. Deputy Mathews went with them after the paramedic determined Hawke’s bleeding on his hands and a couple of scrapes on his face were superficial. Now that the excitement was over, the scratches stung like a son-of-a-bitch.

  He dragged his body up into the saddle. His legs felt like the long flimsy strips of leather his mother would cut to use as lacing. He hadn’t hurdled that many objects since being on the high school track team. And that was forty years ago. No wonder his muscles were quivering like a newborn colt.

  As he rode toward the hut, he contemplated what Mathews had told him about his encounter with the woman. She’d apparently known he was coming, or that both of them were, since she’d made good time finding his horse and mule. But why had she tied the man up and not killed him as she had Sheridan? This wasn’t making any sense. If she was a ruthless killer, who had used him to find Sheridan, why hadn’t she killed Mathews?

  He dismounted at the hut, hanging onto the saddle horn to give his legs a chance to transition from dangling to walking. When he’d been running to make sure his animals weren’t harmed, he hadn’t thought about the obstacles and how at his age he shouldn’t be sprinting and leaping. Now, he understood just how far he could push his body. The realization was hard to swallow.

  Inside the hut, he scanned the small ten by ten room. It would be a comfortable place to recuperate from all that had happened. However, he wasn’t here for a vacation. He had to discover more about Ms. Cox and how she and Sheridan became mixed up.

  After searching the inside and finding her belongings, including a computer, he decided to spend the night here and get back to his truck and trailer in the morning. Hawke unsaddled the horse and mule, fed them the hay cubes from the pack, and tied them under the camouflage netting by the hut.

  Dog plopped on the small cot and fell asleep.

  Hawke found the generator but didn’t start it. He also discovered a propane cookstove and helped himself to a can of ste
w and made a pot of coffee. As the food heated, he opened the computer.

  Turning the device on, he was pleased to see it had a nearly full battery. The downside, it required a password to get to any of the files. He rifled through a notebook and small datebook in her pack. Nothing revealed a password.

  He tried Shoat. Nothing.

  Theodore. Nothing

  Felix. Nothing.

  White. Nothing.

  He stared at the screen. A thought struck.

  Typing Uncle Teddy, he had a sensation he was being watched. Hawke glanced at the window. Nothing. Horse and Jack were on the side of the building. They would have made a fuss if someone had sneaked by them after their earlier experience.

  Hawke glanced down at the screen and the computer had opened. He was in.

  The documents were all under files. He scanned the file names and saw one that was titled White. He opened it and many other files and documents popped up. Some were copies of the records he’d received for the investigation. Others were interviews with people who knew Felix White.

  The coffee boiled, and he rescued it from boiling over. His mind was on the information in the computer. He poured a cup of coffee, turned off the gas to the stove, and sat back down.

  All the interviews stated Felix wasn’t a violent person. They couldn’t understand why anyone would think he’d killed that family. Hawke didn’t understand why the people were so adamant when his police record appeared to show an escalating tendency to violence.

  He clicked on the police file on White. Tonya had highlighted the arrests and made comments in comment boxes in the margins of the documents.

  The first altercation the police responded to was in January of the year he was first sent to jail. It was at a party in Boise. It appeared White had been attending college at Boise State for Environmental Studies. The police broke up the party and an intoxicated White had yelled profanities at them. Tonya’s comment on the side: Felix wasn’t in Boise on this date.

  The next police report stated White had gotten into a fight with another student at a bar not far from the campus. Tonya’s comment: Felix was at his apartment working on a project with another student.

  The final document was a file on the arrest of Felix White for assault with a deadly weapon on a speaker at the college. He was given five years and when he was released, he went home and killed the people living in his shack along with Tonya’s uncle.

  Again, there was a comment on the side. Felix didn’t have a quarrel with the visiting lecturer. He was in his apartment sick with the flu.

  Hawke shook his head. This wouldn’t be the first time someone was wrongly accused. But he wondered that Tonya was keeping it quiet and secretly helping White. He had a feeling everything on this computer would explain it all.

  Even though it was one of the smaller, thin computer devices, he had the sense to know if she was digging into the truth, whoever railroaded White into jail would be looking for it. Hawke dug around in Tonya’s pack and found a flash drive. He stuck it into the computer and opened it. The flash drive appeared to have all the same documents as the computer. With the exception of one that was titled “Bringing Down the Corrupt.” He opened it and discovered a manuscript. That was why she was so determined to dig for the truth. She was writing a book about the events.

  He clicked out of the flash drive, pulled it out of the computer, and tucked the drive into the bottom of the sheath in his boot where he kept his knife.

  Picking up the pot of tepid stew, he ate, filling his belly and letting Dog have the rest. Tomorrow, he’d load Tonya’s belongings onto Horse and head for home. He’d go through all of Ms. Cox’s notes and see if he couldn’t figure out how she’d discovered the information she did and why she hadn’t gone to authorities other than the police. It was obvious the police had railroaded White. But why?

  «»«»«»

  Hawke breathed a sigh of relief as he walked Jack up to the truck and trailer at Pittsburgh campground. He’d nearly fallen off the horse twice, whipping his head around at a sound that made him think someone was following. Dog had appeared just as nervous. He wasn’t sure if it was knowing two deaths had been caused because an innocent man was sent to prison or because there was someone watching them.

  He was too tired and wanted to get the evidence he had back to the Oregon State Police, seeing as how there was someone in law enforcement in Idaho that couldn’t be trusted to try and catch whoever might be following him.

  Usually, he unsaddled the animals. Today, he set the pack boxes, including the one with Ms. Cox’s belongings into the horse trailer first, then led the two animals in, loosening their cinches but not unsaddling them. He wanted on the road.

  “Let’s go,” he said to Dog, holding the driver’s side door open on the pickup.

  Dog leaped into the cab.

  Hawke slid behind the steering wheel, shut the door, and turned the key, waiting for the plugs to warm up. The lights went off. He turned the key farther to start the engine. Nothing happened.

  Someone had sabotaged his truck. There was no other explanation. He’d never had problems with this engine. He kept it up to date with oil changes and any other mechanical thing that needed to be done.

  Whoever had been watching and following him had a partner who’d messed with his truck. Did he dare step out and work on it, leaving his back vulnerable? Would they think he knew more than he did? Shit!

  He opened his cell phone and called Sergeant Spruel.

  “Spruel.”

  “Sarge, I’m sitting in my truck at Pittsburgh Campground in Idaho. Someone sabotaged it, and I’m pretty sure I’m being watched.”

  “Why are you being watched? I heard they air flighted the woman to a Boise hospital last night.”

  “You need to make sure she has someone keeping her safe.” He told Spruel what he’d read on the computer and how he figured there were some corrupt officials involved.

  “I have the flash drive in my boot sheath if anything happens to me. I just wanted you to know what I know before I step out and work on my truck.”

  “Be careful, Hawke. I’ll see the woman gets protection and send a trooper your way.” The connection went dead.

  Hawke heaved a deep breath and opened the truck door after flipping the latch to the hood of the vehicle. “Come,” he ordered Dog who had already fallen asleep on the passenger seat.

  The animal stretched and slowly jumped out of the cab.

  Hawke placed Dog sitting with his back to the front of the vehicle. “Watch,” he told the dog, scanning the three other unoccupied vehicles in the parking area before opening the truck hood and leaning under the hood to inspect the motor. He discovered someone had removed the fuel filter. Did the person take it or toss it?

  If it was tossed, he could find it and be out of here quicker than waiting for someone to bring him a new one.

  He left the hood up and raised his right arm. If he had taken the fuel filter off... He slammed the hood down with his left hand and threw with his right. Hawke kept his eye on the area his hand had pointed to when he threw. He walked to the area and started searching like he would when looking for evidence. After fifteen minutes, he found the filter.

  Back at the truck, he opened the hood and replaced the piece. Within an hour of first trying to start his vehicle, he was pulling out of the campground. He called Spruel to tell him he was headed back and what route he was taking. As much as he wanted to check on Tonya Cox, he wanted to get back to Wallowa County and get the flash drive and computer into the hands of people he trusted.

  Chapter Twenty

  It was evening when Hawke rolled into Alder. His stomach growled. He hadn’t stopped for food or coffee anywhere. His eyelids felt like lead gates wanting to lower. He’d navigated down Rattlesnake Grade and back up Buford Grade at a snail’s pace to avoid going over the edge.

  Parking the truck and trailer in front of the sheriff’s office, he checked on Jack and Horse. The two had their hips cocked, ha
lf asleep. They were used to trailer travel.

  He walked across the road to the Tree Top Café. The deputies and courthouse staff took meals along with the locals who wanted to know what was going on in the county. The door hadn’t closed before he heard his name.

  “Hawke, what are you doing in here this time of the night?” Ralph, the young county jailer asked. The young man spent all his off time in the café chatting up one of the waitresses who was old enough to be his mother.

  “Getting something to eat.” Hawke sat a couple stools down from where Ralph perched at the counter.

  Janelle, a bleached blonde in her forties, slapped a menu on the counter in front of him. “Coffee?” Her smoker’s voice was a turn-off for Hawke but it appeared to have the opposite effect on Ralph.

  Hawke turned over the upside-down coffee cup on the counter in front of him. “Please.”

  She filled it and waited as he read through the menu. He didn’t frequent Tree Top enough to know their menu by heart.

  “I’ll have the double burger and fries.” He closed the menu and handed it to the waitress.

  “You look tired,” Ralph said, picking up his cup of coffee. “I heard you’ve been on special assignment in Idaho.”

  “Is that what you heard?” Hawke wasn’t surprised the word had reached the county level. The law enforcement in this county worked closely together. They had to with the five-man State police, five-man city police in Alder, and six county deputies covering over three thousand square miles and giving aid to seventy-two hundred people.

  “Yeah. You were looking for someone who escaped from a Boise prison.” Ralph set his cup down. “Did you find him?”

  Hawke nodded and set his cup of coffee down as Janelle placed a red plastic basket with a double burger and fries in front of him.

  “Need any sauce or are you just a ketchup man?” she asked.

  “Just ketchup. Nothin’ fancy for me.” He raised the burger to his mouth and took a big bite. This should settle his grumbling stomach and hopefully keep him awake the rest of the way home.