The first body he planned to unearth had been lying beneath the dirt for more than four years, and he didn’t relish the thought of exhuming it. But he couldn’t leave them there, the bodies. This entire stretch of pine-oak forest was up for sale, and the potential buyer was a land developer who wanted to build a golf resort. Soon they’d start cutting down trees and planting grass, not to mention digging the foundations for fifty new luxury condos. And inevitably they’d find the bodies.
His breath frosted in the chilly air as he crossed a small stream. The waters danced silver in the starlight. Dressed entirely in black, his backpack holding durable body bags, he neared the site of the first body dump.
And froze.
Footsteps came from the other side of the rise. He moved to the opposite side of a massive ponderosa pine, a cluster of bushes at its base. He flattened to the ground, the shrubs masking his presence.
And then he saw her for the first time. She wore a headlamp that flared in his night vision, so he shut off the goggles, peering at her between branches. She moved carefully, deliberately, her boots methodically placed in the dark. In one hand she held a GPS unit aloft, stopping every twenty-five feet or so and taking a reading. She was walking a transect, he realized. She stopped and played a recording of some kind of owl from a portable player. Then she paused, listening for a full minute, then two, before moving on to another section.
She stopped, slinging the pack off her back, and dug through it. After pulling out a water bottle, she stood thoughtfully for a moment, drinking deeply. Then she left her pack there on the ground and continued on her transect, stopping occasionally to play the birdsong and wait, intent and listening.
Then he heard it. A bird answered her, calling from the trees. She grinned, her face ecstatic. She silently punched the air in triumph. Then she played the birdsong again, and again the bird answered her, definitely a kind of melodious owl with a sweeping call, something like coooo-weeeep. She continued on, moving over a rise and out of his sight. But caught up in her study, she left her pack on the ground, likely planning to return to it momentarily.
He crept to it silently, rummaging through the contents while watching for her return. He could see her headlamp flashing over the trunks of ponderosas and oaks and knew he had a few moments. He found a second handheld Garmin GPS unit and switched it on. She’d saved a number of waypoints going back several years. Next he pulled out a journal with recorded locations and notes on the Mexican spotted owl. Looked like she’d been doing a threatened species assessment for a land trust that was also interested in the property. She had successfully documented the presence of the owls here.
He flipped through the notebook pages. She’d already gotten a response from the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish. They’d confirmed her finding, and the developer had pulled out of the land deal just yesterday. It was going to the wildlife land trust. This was her follow-up research now. He rocked back on his heels as he scanned the rest of the pages. The land was going to be protected. No sand hazards, no foundations sunk for luxury condos.
A smile turned up one corner of his mouth. The developers would be mad as hell they’d have to find a different property, but probably wanted to avoid any bad press and feeling in the local community. She’d done it. This single woman’s work had led to the protection of the land, and by extension, no one would find the bodies now.
He’d been up late countless nights, following the news of the development as it inevitably crept closer. News of the developer’s pulling out hadn’t hit the media yet. He’d worried over moving the bodies, distressed they’d be unearthed if he didn’t. And if they found the bodies, they might be able to link them to him. He hoped they couldn’t. But he’d been a few years younger when he buried them, and new to that kind of undertaking. New to hiding bodies, at least, even if he wasn’t new to killing.
The headlamp flashed on the other side of the rise. She was coming back. He stuffed the notebook back in her backpack, but kept the GPS unit, wanting to see how close she’d gotten to his sites. He returned to the line of bushes and flattened himself in the dark.
She came over the hill, grinning, taking notes in another small notebook. Without even glancing down, she grabbed her pack and slung it over her shoulder, none the wiser that he’d been there in the dark, so close.
She tucked a strand of brown hair behind her ear, engrossed in what she was writing, and disappeared over the hill.
He knew even then she was a kindred spirit, a warrior for justice. He’d follow her. And he’d come to know her.
Nineteen
Alex climbed, following the old path of the resort’s gondola. Though the gondola cars had long since been taken down, the cables and towers still remained, and a few young trees grew in the wide-open space. The lack of dense trees and underbrush made climbing easy, and she followed the path of the gondola to its second tower. From there, she shielded her eyes against the sun and looked upward. The next tower was in view, at the top of an even steeper section. The higher the better for wolverines, so she continued to climb.
More late-season purple lupine grew in the sun-drenched open space, and the tall seed heads of cow parsnip jutted out at odd angles. Along wetter areas where water trickled down the mountain in seeps, deep blue mountain gentian still grew beside pink and yellow monkey flower.
She breathed in, feeling elated, on a mountain high. Sweat trickling down the center of her back, Alex reached the next tower. From there it was only one more section to the top tower, which stood on a rocky outcrop higher up. This section was steeper, with crumbling rock, and she resorted to climbing on her hands and feet in a few places.
At last she reached a large flat area. A beautiful vista of surrounding peaks, vast heather, and snowfields rewarded her as she gazed out. She turned around and stared down the way she’d come. She couldn’t see the lodge any longer because of the intervening ridges of the mountain. She was miles away from it.
As high as it was, though, this spot wasn’t the top of the mountain, as additional ski lift tracts opened up in several directions above her and others to the left and right. Again, the ski lift chairs had been removed, but the towers and cables remained. On this relatively flat section of the mountain, several buildings had been constructed. To her left was the gondola terminal, huge gears ready to wind up cable. Next to it was an old ice rink, presently holding only standing water, the remnants of rain and early-season snow.
Ahead of her stood a large wooden structure in the same style as the main lodge she was staying in. She walked to it. Peering in through the windows, she saw that it had been a restaurant and warming hut. She walked around to the door, finding it locked with a new padlock. She pulled out her set of keys and started trying all the ones that were likely matches. She got lucky on the fourth try.
Pushing the door open, she stepped inside. Tables and chairs had been left behind, set up as if waiting for the afternoon ski crowd. All evidence of the scene Ben had described—empty liquor bottles, beer cans, cigarette butts—had been cleaned up, but the walls were still covered with graffiti. Some of it sported band names, most were people’s names or initials, and a few were crudely drawn images of human anatomy.
Through a pair of swinging doors stood a kitchen, with stainless steel counters and stovetops—a smaller replica of the kitchen in the lodge. She spotted another door in the back of the kitchen. She tested it, finding it locked, and went through the set of keys until she found the right one. Swinging open the door revealed a small space with a desk. On top sat a radio, a microphone, and an old set of headphones. A clipboard with some neatly written weather observations sat on a shelf above the radio. A newer Honda generator was tucked under the desk, next to two cans of gasoline.
She locked up the room and passed through the kitchen again, standing for a moment in the restaurant. Through the window she saw another building, this one smaller with no windows.
She left the restaurant and headed that way. This lock was a
lso still intact, so she tried all the keys again. When she found the right one, she unlatched the door and swung it open. Inside, shelves lined the walls. It was the gear storage shed, but the items in it were not new. She looked around, finding old climbing ropes, carabiners, ice axes, and a box full of TNT used to create controlled avalanches. She wondered how stable it still was and decided not to dig around in the box to find out.
Locking everything up again, she continued to one of the upper ski runs, the weight of her pack feeling heavier and heavier. At last she found the perfect cluster of trees near the tree line. Two fallen sun-bleached logs were ideal for the run pole and supporting beam. Shrugging off her pack, she slumped down onto a log and ate her lunch, every muscle in her body strained and exhausted. She washed down her veggie and hummus sandwich with generous amounts of freshly filtered mountain water, then went to work building the next camera trap.
When she finished, she sat for a while, drinking from her water bottle and enjoying the expansive view.
On her way down, she took the cleared gondola path again, then cut away from it part of the way down. She wanted to check out the building that the previous biologist had used as a field station.
Referring to the resort map Ben had given her, she moved through the trees, using her GPS unit and compass. She was completely off trail now, moving through the forest. She’d made good time that day, and the sun was still high as she encountered a glorious alpine meadow. A stream trickled through it, and she refilled her water bottle. Purple lupine and red Indian paintbrush still held on here, alongside white yarrow and deep yellow goldenrod. Nearby, hoary marmots lay in the sun on a rock pile. She rested again, lying down in the meadow and staring up at the sky.
In the mountains, clouds moved in mysterious ways. Instead of trekking across the sky from one side to another as they did in flatter areas, mountain clouds behaved mercurially. They swirled and circled, sliding up mountainsides and streaming over peaks like waterfalls. Winds moved erratically, making the clouds dance in a myriad of billowing, graceful maneuvers. She stared up, feeling more relaxed than she had in years, feeling like she could just fall asleep in this beautiful place.
Suddenly the alarmed whistles from marmots made her sit up. She watched as six of them ran from the upper left of the rock pile straight down, not pausing once. They were evacuating the area, and quickly. Something had scared them.
Shielding her eyes from the sun, she gazed up to the top of the boulder field. And then she saw it, a lone squat figure marching along at a steady clip toward the rocks. A wolverine. As the marmots all hid in rock crevices, Alex watched the wolverine lope straight across the boulders, the uneven terrain nothing to its powerful limbs and determination. Uninterested in the marmots, and perhaps heading for a known carcass that would provide easier sustenance, it moved to the edge of the rock pile without stopping. Jumping down to the forest floor, it continued in a straight line. Before it disappeared into the trees, it looked straight at Alex. It didn’t pause or look worried, but it communicated to her that it was well aware of her presence. She locked eyes with it before it turned away, never even slowing, and disappeared into the trees.
Only then did she remember her camera.
At first she was tempted to kick herself, but ultimately decided that it had appeared and vanished so quickly that she’d have spent the entire time digging out her camera and then it would have been gone.
Her heart elated, she stood up and punched the air in triumph.
She waited a long time, hoping in vain that it might return. She explored where it had gone, searching for a carcass it might be visiting. But she didn’t see a sign of it again.
Without being able to see its ventral pattern, it was too difficult to know if it had been one of the ones visiting her bait station. It did have a similar face mask to the female she’d captured images of, but without a photograph of the one she’d just seen, she couldn’t be positive.
Reluctantly she finally returned to the meadow and put her backpack on. She checked the map and continued toward the other buildings. With plenty of daylight left, she entered a stretch of forest. She was now at about the same elevation as the lodge, though it was more than two miles away. As she moved through the trees, a clearing came into view. Readjusting her pack, she left the trees and spotted three large wooden structures.
An overgrown road wended away into the forest on her right. Brush had reclaimed it, new trees closing in on both sides. Alex walked to the cluster of buildings, surprised that the exteriors hadn’t been spray-painted with graffiti. Maybe these buildings were less-common knowledge. All three had relatively new-looking padlocks on them, the same Master brand the LTWC had used on its other buildings.
She unlocked the first one to find an old stable inside. Six horse stalls stood along one wall, and in the center of the building sat a beautiful old sleigh, once bright green and red, but now covered with a layer of dust. She walked inside, admiring the sleigh’s contours. It was crazy how much stuff the owners had just left here when they donated the property.
She locked up the building again and moved to the next one, which was a little smaller. Unlocking the padlock, she let the door swing wide. A gray tarp lay over a large object in the middle of the room. She lifted a corner, seeing a strange machine underneath, then pulled off the tarp all the way. For a few moments she stared at the object beneath in wonder.
It was unlike anything she had seen before. It looked like someone had chopped a small plane in half, removed the wings, and then mounted the propeller on the back instead of the front. Skis had been welded onto the bottom of the vehicle, one in front and two in the back, with a steering wheel installed where the flight controls would normally be. Painted a vivid red, the machine was small, capable of holding only two people. Alex stood there marveling at it. She’d read of such things, but never seen one before. It looked like a snowplane, which had been used in Yellowstone National Park for a short period before more compact and efficient snowmobiles had been invented. She wondered if the horse caretaker had used it to pick up feed and other supplies for his charges, or if the resort had shuttled important guests about in it.
It looked old, maybe from the thirties or early forties. She peered at the engine, wondering how long it had been since it was taken out. It looked like a modified automobile engine. The tarp had done a good job of keeping off the dust. Intrigued, she walked around it, admiring it. Then she replaced the cover.
Once outside, she moved to the last building. This one was set apart from the other two, a one-story building with a loft that sported a small window. The roof had been patched recently. She unlocked the door and walked inside. It was a small bunkhouse. A worktable stood next to another recent-model Honda generator. Gas containers were neatly stacked next to the door. The table had been equipped with a work light and wooden chair. A bunk bed stood against one wall, stripped of its bedding. On one post of the bed hung a gravity-fed water filter, the kind with a bag that you just fill up and hang. Much easier than the hand-pump ones, but also a lot heavier.
Ben had told her this was the workspace of the biologist who was here before her. It was a cozy little space, a hell of a lot less creepy than the lodge, that was for sure.
She left, locking the place up after herself, and decided to see where the road led. As she walked down it, she found a couple of places with deep mud where the biologist’s tires had spun, making large ruts.
As she hiked, the road took several bends and then turned into a straightaway that led out to the state highway. If she walked that way, then she’d turn right onto the main road, then another right into the lodge’s driveway, likely a mile or so down the road.
Preferring the forest to hiking along a street, she went off trail again, using the map, and headed back to the lodge. She looked forward to a hot shower and dinner.
The phone was ringing as Alex reached the lodge. She hurriedly unlocked the door and went to the phone.
“Hello?”
<
br /> “You still alive up there?” Zoe asked her.
“Hey, Zoe,” Alex said, shrugging out of her backpack and sitting down on the stool. “What are you up to?”
“Finally saw your interview from the wetlands ceremony, kiddo.”
“They aired it out there now?” It had been weeks since the shooting.
“No—they put it online. It’s gone viral. Footage of someone being shot and all that. But there you were. All knowledgeable and everything.”
“They actually showed Michelle getting shot?”
Zoe went quiet for a minute. “They came close. They showed the gunman talking to her, leading up to that moment, and then the sound of the gun going off. After that, the cameraman dropped his equipment.”
“Did they catch the second gunman?” Alex asked, afraid of the answer.
“They don’t even have a clue who he is. They figured out where he was firing from, by a patch of trees. But that’s it. He vanished before they got there.”
Alex sighed. The man had saved her life and those of who knew how many other people who were there. “How’s the reporter?”
“She’s been released from the hospital.”
“That’s a relief, at least.”
“And not only that, but now millions of people have seen your interview. Not the whole thing, but certain sound bites as they build up to the shooting. So at least a lot of people are hearing that they should turn off their lights at night to save birds.”
“Well, there’s that,” Alex said, feeling sick.
Zoe regaled her with tales of her latest nightmares on the set, and they laughed together. When they hung up, Alex’s spirit felt lighter.
A Solitude of Wolverines Page 20
