by Jeff Carson
Connell’s eyes became vacant, his thick arms stretched to his sides, and he flopped onto his back with a weak exhale.
Wolf clambered onto Connell’s chest and slammed an elbow into his face. Then he punched him with a knuckle-crunching right. Then another elbow. Then another.
…
Wolf stood up, tilted his head back, and greedily sucked air through his bared teeth. His lungs fought for air, burning with each inhale. After what seemed like five minutes of panting, Wolf caught his breath and composed himself. He looked down and bent over, pressing his fingers on Connell’s thick neck, now slick with warm blood. Connell’s pulse was steady and strong.
Sergeant Connell was going to be tough to move off the mountain. Or maybe he wouldn’t need to be moved. Maybe he’d come to and be able to walk himself down. Connell was alive, that’s all he knew. He would need facial reconstructive surgery; that was another thing he was pretty sure about. Wolf couldn’t remember how many blows he had landed, but he was glad he had stopped before killing the man. That would have … complicated whatever the hell just happened.
A long rumble of thunder echoed from the steadily growing darkness in the south, as if in reaction to his thoughts.
Wolf exhaled loudly, looked down at Connell again, and then stepped away. A glint caught Wolf’s eye, and he stepped over to Connell’s Glock, almost stepping on his own in the process. Bending to pick up Connell’s pistol, he heard a voice in the distance.
“You guys up there?” Rachette said. He followed with a loud whistle.
“Yeah! Up here!” He picked up the gun, removed the magazine and pulled back the slide, ejecting the chambered round. Without thinking, he flung the clip off the cliff, and then tossed the pistol deep in the trees.
The bugs ramped up their hissing. A bird flapped past him and coasted out over the expanse—over the immense drop that beckoned him once again.
To Wolf, the air seemed hotter and more stagnant than before. Sweat trickled down his temples, down his neck and under his shirt collar. He tasted blood and spit, slapping a bright-red dollop on the rock.
He walked back to the edge. His body was humming, his movements fuzzy, body saturated with adrenaline.
Looking, he finally saw what he knew would be there—the splayed body of Jerry Wheatman forty feet below, crumpled against jagged boulders. The long drop and the unforgiving landing left little chance that the boy could have survived.
Wolf let his mind run through the scenario. He pictured the teenager slipping up top, tumbling off the edge, deafening wind rushing by his ears, and then slamming into the scree field below.
Wolf jerked away and looked back to Connell’s inert form. The man still hadn’t moved. Wolf shook his head and rubbed a split on the inside of his cheek with his tongue. He walked away from the potential crime scene and spat more blood into a bush.
“Hey, what’s up?” Rachette scrambled up into view.
“Found Jerry Wheatman,” Wolf answered, walking back to the ledge.
“Yeah?”
Wolf pointed to the edge with a somber look.
“Oh, man.” Rachette’s voice trailed off as he looked over the cliff. “Jesus.” He pulled back from the edge.
“I noticed this here,” Wolf said, pointing behind Rachette at the discoloration. “I think it’s vomit. You can see the chunks of partially digested food.”
Rachette bent over and studied it. “Oh yeah. So what does that mean?”
“What would you say is in that vomit?” Wolf asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Looks like a ham-and-egg breakfast to me. Yellow pieces of yolk from the egg, pink ham chunks, toast.” Wolf pointed.
“Yeah, okay. Yeah, it does look like that. So, what does that mean?”
“I don’t know. This person had recently eaten breakfast. Maybe in town. Maybe someone freaked out up here after seeing Wheatman fall off the edge. Puked his guts out and ran. Or maybe he puked his guts out after pushing Wheatman off the edge.”
“You think he was pushed?” Rachette turned, expelling a hefty black dollop of tobacco spit in a bush.
“I think it’s possible.” Wolf flicked a glance to the trees. Connell was still out. “It’s hard saying what happened. There are no footprints since it’s rock. No indication of struggle.”
“There could be some evidence on Wheatman’s body,” Rachette said.
Wolf nodded and looked down. Two deputies came around the corner and into view on the trail far below. “How about the shoe prints? Three pairs in all?”
Rachette nodded. “There were definitely three pairs of shoes pointing up the trail, then two pointing down. Three came up, and two ... Jesus, what happened to you?” Rachette was looking Wolf up and down.
Wolf looked down at his uniform; dust powdered the whole left side of his body. A scrape on his elbow drained blood down the length of his arm to his fingers, and his other elbow was covered in blood that Wolf knew was not his own. His jeans were scuffed with dirt, and a clump of burrs was velcroed to his leg.
“Oh, yeah, that.” He slapped the dirt off his pants. “Give me your handkerchief, will ya?”
Rachette gave him his ever-present handkerchief from his rear pocket.
Wolf wiped the blood off his arm. “Sorry, I’ll buy you another one.”
“What the hell happened?” Rachette suddenly went wide-eyed, then looked again over the ledge, then back to Wolf. “Where’s Connell?”
Wolf huffed and nodded toward the trees.
Rachette took a second to find Connell among the underbrush. “What the …” He swiveled his head back and forth. “Is that Connell’s blood?” He finally settled his eyes on Wolf’s forehead.
Wolf wiped his head, putting another dark spot on the handkerchief.
“Yeah. I think that’s from the head-butt to his nose. He’s going to need some medical attention, but I suspect he’ll be able to walk his own ass down the mountain when he comes to.”
Rachette spat again at his feet and laughed. “Holy crap. I can’t wait to hear this.”
“Hey, watch what you’re doing. Don’t spit anymore. Until we know differently, this is a crime scene. Connell and I already messed it up enough. No sense making it worse. And don’t worry about what happened here. He deserved it—that’s all you need to know for now.”
Coming out with the truth was not an option. It was unbelievable what Connell had just tried, possibly in the literal sense to other people. Wolf might come out looking like the crazy one, spreading rumors about the son of an influential council member who happened to be Wolf’s opponent for the sheriff’s appointment. As much as Connell deserved to be in handcuffs, Wolf’s form of justice would have to do for now.
Rachette stepped into the trees toward Connell.
“Is Baine on his way up?”
“Yep, he’s right behind me.” Rachette let out a long whistle as he looked down on Connell’s inert body. “Yeah, that’s a broken nose. Hey, Connell! Wow, he’s out.”
Deputy Baine clambered up into view.
Wolf stepped toward the ledge again. “All right, Rachette, you’re with me. We’re heading down. Baine, come here.”
They all convened one last time on the cliff’s edge. Baine peeked over at the body below. “Good Lord. That him?” Baine turned away from the cliff and walked toward the pines.
Wolf grabbed his radio. It was scoured and dusted with dirt, but it still worked.
“All right,” Wolf announced, “we’ve found our victim. Appears DOA, but we’ve gotta move fast in case he still has vitals.” Wolf gave a sharp whistle and waved his hand to the deputies below.
They waved back and doubled their pace.
“Right here, at the base,” Wolf said somberly into the radio. “We also have one of ours in need of medical assistance on top of the cliff. Connell is unconscious, and may need to be evac’d off the mountain. We need to move fast. Hilton, Walters.” The two men below didn’t break stride. “Let me know.�
�
A cacophony of affirmative radio calls barked through their receivers.
Baine was milling about in the trees, staring dumbly at Connell and keeping his distance.
Connell had woken up. His forearm was lying against his forehead, one knee propped in the air
“Baine, when he’s up and around, help him down before those storms move in.”
“Uh, okay,” Baine stammered as he eyed Wolf, then shifted his gaze back to Connell’s bloody face.
“Rachette. Get a few pictures of the vomit spot here, and then bag it.”
“Yes, sir,” Rachette said.
“Then catch up to me.” Wolf held up his hand to Rachette.
Rachette shook his head and tossed him his can of Copenhagen snuff. “I thought you quit this stuff.”
Wolf took a pinch and put it in on the uninjured side of his mouth, tossed the can back, and turned to the trail. “Not today,” he said.
Chapter 5
Wolf ended up reaching the parking lot before Rachette could catch up, so he helped coordinate what now had become an extraction of a dead body—Jerry Wheatman hadn’t survived the fall.
As Wolf waited for Rachette, he directed two deputies to the top of the trail to help bring down Connell.
“He twisted his ankle bad,” Wolf had said. “But bring the full first-aid kit. He might need stitches.”
Wolf had ignored the puzzled looks his comments caused, but he was finding it hard to sidestep the questions about his own scrapes and bruises, so he decided to take refuge in his truck.
Wolf climbed into the Explorer with a grunt, his body stiff, muscles stuffed with lactic acid. His adrenaline-injected body had been put through the wringer.
He turned down the radio chatter to a murmur and sat back, settling in for a good rest. It wasn’t like him to dwell on the past, but right now he longed for his ten-year-ago physique and conditioning.
“Jesus. I can’t believe you did that to Connell! I wish I would have seen it.” Rachette’s head was in the open passenger window. He stared at Wolf with a look wavering between reverence and disbelief. “Was that about next week or something?”
Wolf fired up the engine. “Get in the damn car.” He waited for Rachette to jump in, then backed out of his parking spot, narrowly missing another SCSD truck.
Rachette held up the bag of evidence he’d collected for Wolf to see, then turned and put it on the back seat. “Where we going?”
“To tell Jerry’s parents their son is dead.”
Rachette’s face dropped.
Wolf couldn’t blame him. This was one responsibility anyone in their right mind would not relish. Wolf loathed the prospect of witnessing the last bits of hope fade from the parents’ eyes as he broke the news.
“Can you please pour me some of that coffee?” Wolf nodded toward a dinged-up metal thermos and fished an old Styrofoam cup from the floor at his feet.
Rachette stared at Wolf for a second and shook his head, picking up the thermos. “Dammit.” He patted at a dark splotch of coffee on his pants as they passed through the deep puddle at the mouth of the parking lot.
“What the hell’s wrong with you?” Wolf jabbed.
“Psssshhh.”
Wolf chuckled inwardly. He was in his late thirties, ten years in the department, and a candidate to be appointed to sheriff of Sluice County, but somehow he’d found the one person he really connected with to be this second-year twenty-three-year-old.
For too many years, he had observed the disturbing shortfalls of many of the department’s deputies. Some didn’t step up when the going got tough. Some showed borderline psychotic behavior when given a badge and gun, like Connell. Most of them were good men, but would he trust his life in their hands? Not all of them. Sure as hell not with Connell.
Rachette was different. In his eighteen months in the department, he’d shown Wolf that he was the one within the department that Wolf could count on. In Wolf’s estimation, Rachette was the full package—with the attitude, strength, coolness under pressure, reliability, confidence, intelligence, and drive Wolf liked to see in a deputy.
Thinking about all this, while watching Rachette wipe coffee off his crotch, Wolf smiled as he turned his attention back to the winding road to town.
…
The road turned back to the west and dropped in elevation through the dense forest for a couple miles. Massive gleaming, copper-trimmed houses poked out of the trees on both sides of the road. They were well spread apart from one another, leaving vast swaths of dense forest between them; just the way the extremely well-to-do from all corners of the world liked their Rocky Mountain getaways.
Wolf’s ears popped as he wound down further still, and finally out onto the dirt straightaway that slung out onto the vast valley floor. Barbed wire lined the road on either side, and cattle grazed in the bright-green fields smattered with wild flowers. They reached the T-junction of Highway 734 that ran north–south and took a left toward town.
Rocky Points was a ski resort town first and foremost, but it hadn’t always been. In 1883, some hard-nosed easterners had come to Denver and kept walking uphill, past Black Hawk miners, past Central City miners, over the Continental Divide, and then a little south to try their luck. There they dug, sluiced, panned, found some gold, and set roots. They dubbed their new town Rocky Points, a fitting name referring to the two rocky pointed 12,000-foot peaks to the west of town that would later become the ski resort. Years later, the borders of Sluice County would be carved into the map, running a long sliver north–south, with Rocky Points right smack in the middle.
It had been a rough beginning for Rocky Points, according to the history taught in town schools. There was a good amount of gold to be found at the start, but as word got out, and more and more men made their way into town, it became apparent that the gold wasn’t as plentiful as had once been thought. And as competition grew between hard men, things got dangerous. Fighting, murder, and lawlessness ruled for years. That was until a band of four men joined forces to bring law and order to the town. One of those men was Wolf’s great-great-great grandfather, the first sheriff of Rocky Points, and then of the larger territory of Sluice County created a short time later. Or so the story went.
Wolf took comfort from knowing he was carrying on his family tradition. He knew that if his father were still alive, he would be proud. Probably more proud if I could figure out exactly what had happened to the Wheatman boy, Wolf thought. And probably prouder still if he were to become sheriff.
“Might as well stop by the Mackery now,” said Wolf as they approached the northern tip of town. “Maybe Bill can shed some light on where his daughter is. I need to fill up anyway.”
The Mackery gas station sat right on the north end of Main Street, past which each and every day-tripper from Denver drove on the way in and out of town. A perfect location for a gas station. However, Ruth Beal ran the Mackery, which handicapped the Mackery’s potential.
Wolf pulled off the highway and docked the SUV next to a clean gas pump, the only part of the Mackery one could consider up to date.
Before Wolf could shut off the engine, Ruth was out of the small shack of a convenience store, yelling at the top of her lungs.
Ruth wore dirty jeans and a dirtier denim jacket to match. Her hair was twisted every which way like a nest, and she looked like she was just in the middle of eating, because there was a yellow dollop of mustard on her lip.
“Did you find the bastards?” she yelled.
Wolf opened his door and got out. “Hi Ruth. What are you talking about?”
“The hippies who stole the gas!”
Wolf looked at her with a blank expression. “I’m not sure what you’re talking about.”
“What? I called it in just now! A couple hippies just drove off without paying for fifty bucks worth of gas! Probably too high to remember to pay. Damn hippies—”
“Did you get the license-plate number?” Wolf asked, swiping his credit card, and then inser
ting the gas hose into the tank.
“No, I just went in the back when they pulled up, then I came back out and they were gone.”
Rachette opened the door and leaned out with a concerned expression. “What kind of car was it?”
“A gol-darn hippie mobile! One of those gol-darn mini-vans.” She was becoming red in the face.
“You mean a bus? Like a Volkswagen bus-type van?” Wolf asked.
“Yeah, I guess. If that’s what they call ’em.” She muttered to herself and looked into the distance, like she was spotting hippies in the trees.
“Ruth, is Bill Mulroy here today?” Wolf asked.
“Nope. He’s in Frasier ... I think.”
Wolf met eyes with Rachette, and then turned back to Ruth. “Why’s that?”
“Why? What do you mean, why?” She stared bug-eyed at Wolf.
Wolf was confused. “Why is Bill Mulroy in Frasier? Why did he go there?”
“Oh,” she said. “I don’t know why.” She scrunched her face, thinking about it.
The gas pump clicked to a stop and Wolf pulled the hose out. As he did so, he noticed a sign hanging from the tank. “Ruth, what’s this sign all about?”
All three stood frozen. Rachette got back in the car and shut the door.
“Pre-pay?” Wolf asked. “Isn’t it impossible to fill up unless you turn on the tank after someone gives you money or they put in a credit card?” He pulled out his credit-card receipt and waved it before putting it in his pocket.
Ruth stood with a sparsely toothed open mouth. “Huh. Oh mercy. What the hell am I thinking? I don’t know what happened then!” She burst into a cackle, which ended in a brief coughing fit that made Wolf hope he wasn’t going to have to perform CPR on her.
“So, there weren’t any hippies who stole your gas?” Wolf opened the driver’s-side door.
“No, I guess not. Sorry, I don’t know what the hell’s goin’ on …”
Wolf smiled. “Talk to you later, Ruth. Stay out of trouble and try not to harass too many people coming into town, all right? They are good for your business,” he chided her.
