Free Fire Part 14

Joe smiled. "It gets lonely here, huh?"

The ranger, whose name tag said B. Stevens, nodded. "You're the first people here today. It gets real slow this late in the season."

B. Stevens hadn't shaved for a couple of days and hadn't combed his hair that morning. He was the polar opposite of the spit-shined James Langston Joe had met that morning.

Demming took over, telling Stevens they were following up on the murders, that Joe was with the State of Wyoming and she was providing a.s.sistance. While they talked, Joe flipped through the guest register, going back to July 21.

"Stevens was working that morning," Demming told Joe. "He was here when Clay McCann checked in."

"I was here when he came back too," Stevens said with unmistakablepride. "He put his guns right here on this counter and told me what he'd done. That's when I called for backup."

Joe nodded, asked Stevens to recall the morning. Stevens told the story without embellishment, replicating the chain of events Joe had studied in the incident reports.

"When he checked in before going on his hike," Joe asked, "did you see any weapons on him?"

Stevens said he didn't, McCann must have left them in his car. What struck him, though, was how McCann was dressed, "like he'd just taken all of his clothes out of the packages. Most of the people we see down here are hard-core hikers or fishermen.They don't look so . . . neat."

"He didn't seem nervous or jumpy?"

"No. He just seemed . . . uncomfortable. Like he was out of his element, which he was, I guess."

"Can you remember how much time he spent signing in? Did he do it quickly, or did it take a few minutes?"

Stevens scratched his head. "I just can't recall. No one's asked me that before. He didn't make that much of an impressionon me. The first time he was in here, I mean. When he came back with those guns, that's what I remember."

"Can I get a copy of this page he signed in on?"

Stevens shot a look at Demming, said, "We don't have a copy machine here. We've been requesting one for years, but headquarters won't give us one."

"Bureaucracy," Demming mumbled.

Joe asked if he could borrow the register and send it back, and the ranger agreed.

"We can't even get a phone line," Stevens said. "In order to call out we use radios or cell phones that get a signal about an hour a day, if that."

Joe said, "Does this entrance have a camera set up at the borderlike the others?"

Stevens laughed. "We have a camera," he said, "but it hasn't worked for a few years. We've requested a repairman, but . . ."

"We were thinking of hiking to the crime scene," Joe said. "Is it straight down that trail out there?"

"We were?" Demming asked, slightly alarmed.

Stevens nodded. "There's a fork in the trail right off, but it's well marked." The ranger hesitated. "Are you sure you want to do that?"

"Yup."

Stevens looked at Demming, then back at Joe. "Be d.a.m.ned careful. This area has become pretty well known with all of the publicity. They call it the Zone of Death once you cross the line into Idaho. Lots more people show up here than they used to. Some of them get as far as the border but chicken out and come back giggling. But others are just plain scary-looking. The Zone draws them, I guess. They want to be in a place with no law. It's not my idea of a good time, but we can't stop them from walkinginto it if they've paid their fee and signed in. Personally, I think we ought to close the trail until the situation is resolved, or everybody just forgets about what happened."

Demming asked, "Are there people in there now?"

Stevens shrugged. "It's hard to say. More folks have signed in than have come out. Of course, the stragglers could have gone on from here, or come back after we're closed. But you never know. Our rangers are a little reluctant to patrol in there now, if you know what I mean. They're afraid of getting am-bushedby somebody who thinks they can't ever be prosecuted for it."

"You're right," Demming said. "We should close the trail."

"We'll be okay in a few weeks," Stevens said, "when the snow comes. We've had twelve feet by Halloween in the past. That'll give us the winter to make our case."

Joe thanked Stevens and left with Demming. "Why did you take the register?" Demming asked.

Joe showed her the page with Clay McCann's name on it. Above his name were signatures from the day before for R. Hoening, J. McCaleb, C. Williams, and C. Wade. They listed their destination as "Nirvana."

Joe said, "If he wanted to make sure they were here, all he had to do was read the register."

As they stood near the Yukon they both looked at the trailhead,as if it were calling to them.

"I don't know, Joe . . ." Demming said cautiously.

"I want to see the crime scene," Joe said. "It'll help me get my bearings. You can wait for me here if you want."

She thought about it for a few seconds, looking from Joe to the trailhead and back before saying, "I'm going with you."

The sign at the fork in the trail indicated it was thirty miles to Old Faithful to the right, two miles to Robinson Lake on the left. The trail on the right fork was more heavily traveled. They went left.

The forest closed in around them. Because there was no plan or program to clear brush in the park, the floor of the timber on both sides of the trail was thick and tangled with rotting deadfall.Joe was struck by how "un-Yellowstone-like" this part of the park was. There were no geysers or thermal areas, and they'd seen no wildlife. Only thick, lush vegetation and old-growthtrees. He studied the surface of the trail as he hiked, looking for fresh tracks either in or out, and stopped at a mud hole to study a wide Vibram-soled footprint.

"Someone's been in here recently," he said.

"Great," Demming whispered.

There was no delineation sign or post to indicate where they crossed the Idaho border. Joe a.s.sumed they had because the line, according to his map, was less than two hundred yards from the ranger station and they'd gone much farther than that. The trail meandered at a slight decline, but it was easy walking.

He heard it before he saw it.

"Boundary Creek," Joe whispered. They were now in the Zone of Death.

Joe felt his senses heighten as they crossed the creek, which was wider and more impressive than he'd guessed from looking at the map. He hopped from rock to rock, spooking brook trout that sunned in calm pools, their forms shooting across the sandy bottom like dark sparks. On the other side, as they pushed fartherinto the trees, he tried to will his ears to hear better and his eyes to sharpen. His body tingled, and he felt, for the first time in months, back in his element.

Robinson lake was rimmed with swamp except for the far side where trees formed a northern stand. The trail skirted the lake on the right and curled around it to the trees where, Joe guessed, the campers had set up their tents and been murdered. As they walked, he tried to put himself into Clay McCann's head. How far away did he see their tents? Where did he encounterHoening? Did he smell their campfire, hear them talkingbefore he got there?

As they approached the stand of trees and an elevated, gra.s.sy flat that had to be where the camp was located, Joe heard Demming unsnap her holster behind him. She was as jumpy as he was.

The camp had been cleared months before but the fire ring revealed the center of it. Logs had been dragged from the timberto sit on around the fire. Tiny pieces of plasticized foil in the gra.s.s indicated where a camper-or Clay McCann-had opened a package of snacks.

In the campsite, Joe turned and surveyed the trail they had taken. From the camper's perspective, they must have seen McCanncoming. There was no way he snuck up on them unless they were distracted or oblivious, which was possible. Since Williams had been found near the fire ring and McCaleb and Wade had been killed coming out of their tent, he a.s.sumed McCannwas literally in the camp before he started shooting. So was Hoening, whose body was found on the trail, the first or last to die? Again it struck him that the sequence of events really didn't matter. There was no doubt who'd done it.

"Joe . . ." Demming whispered.

She was staring into the timber, her face ashen, her hand on her gun. Joe followed her line of sight.

The man aiming his rifle at them was dressed in filthy camouflage fatigues and had been hiding behind a tree. At fifty feet, it was unlikely he would miss if he pulled the trigger.

"That's right," the man said to Demming, "pull that gun out slow and toss it over to the side."

She did as told.

Because his back was to the lake, Joe figured the man with the rifle hadn't seen the Glock in his belt. Not that it would help them right now, since in order to use it he'd need to pull it, rack the slide, and hit what he was aiming at. In the time that would take, the rifleman could empty his weapon into the both of them.

"I seen you coming half a mile away," the man said, stepping out from behind the tree but keeping the rifle leveled. "I was in the trees taking a s.h.i.t when you showed up."

He was short, stout, mid-thirties, with a blocky head, wide nose flattened to his face, dirt on his hands. His eyes sparkled with menace. Behind him, in the shadows of the timber, Joe now saw a crude lean-to shelter, a skinned and half-dismembereddeer hanging from a cross-pole lashed to tree trunks. A survivalist, living off the land in a place with no law.

"You need to lower the weapon," Demming said, her voice calmer than Joe thought his would be at that moment. "Let's talk this over before you get yourself into any more trouble."

"What kind of trouble?" he said. "There ain't nothing you can do to me here."

"It doesn't work that way," Demming said.

"Sure it does," he said, and showed a tight smile. He was missing teeth on both top and bottom. "It worked for Clay McCann."

Joe and Demming exchanged a quick glance.

"I wrote him a letter but he never answered," the man said. Joe tried to determine the man's accent. His words were flat and hard. Midwestern, Joe guessed.

"Where you from?" Joe asked. "Nebraska?"

"Iowa."

"You're a long way from home."

The Iowan looked hard at Joe for the first time and narrowed his eyes. "This is my home. And you two are trespa.s.sing. And the way I got it figured, I could shoot you both right now and walk 'cause no court can try me."

"That's where you're wrong," Demming said. "How long have you been here?"

"Month."

"Then you don't know that Congress pa.s.sed a law," Demmingsaid. "You're now in the Idaho district. This is no longer off the map."

Joe admired Demming's quick thinking. The lie sounded credible. It produced a flicker of doubt in the Iowan's eyes and the muzzle of his rifle dropped a few inches.

"Let us leave," Demming said, "and no harm will come to you. There was no way you could have known."

"They really pa.s.sed a law?" he asked.

Demming nodded. Joe nodded.

"And the president signed it?"

"Yes."

The Iowan looked from Demming to Joe and back, digging for a clue either way. Joe hoped his face wouldn't reveal anything.Seconds ticked by. A bald eagle skimmed the surface of the lake and just missed plucking a fish out.

"Naw," the Iowan said, raising the rifle b.u.t.t back to his shoulder,"I don't believe you. If that was the case there would have been some rangers patrolling out here, and I ain't seen n.o.body."

The heavy boom, an explosion of blood and fingers on the forestock, and the rifle kicking out of the Iowan's hands happenedsimultaneously and left the wounded man standing there empty-handed and wide-eyed.

Demming screamed, Joe froze.

Another shot took the Iowan's nose and part of his cheek-boneoff his face. When he instinctively reached up with his now-shattered left hand, a bullet ripped through the back of his camo trousers at knee level, no doubt slicing through tendons, collapsing him backward into the gra.s.s like a puppet with strings clipped.

Joe saw movement on his left in his peripheral vision, a flash of clothing darting from the reeds along the sh.o.r.eline into the cover of the trees. He fumbled for his weapon, racked the slide, trained it on the writhing, moaning Iowan as Demming retrievedher pistol.

He approached the Iowan and squatted, patting down the man and finding a .44 revolver, bear spray, and the half-gnawed leg bone of the deer. He tossed them aside, adrenaline and the aftereffects of fear coursing through him. The leg plopped fifteenfeet out into the lake.

He heard Demming shout into her radio, telling the ranger back at the station to call in a helicopter for an airlift to Idaho Falls before the man bled out.

"Is he going to make it?" she asked Joe, her eyes wide, her hands trembling so badly she couldn't seat the radio back into its case on her belt. She glanced nervously in the direction the shots had been fired.

"I think so," Joe said, grimacing at the Iowan's split and disfigured face and the pool of bright red blood forming in the gra.s.s behind his knees. "We can tie his legs off with tourniquets and bind his hand and face to stop the bleeding," he said, taking off his shirt to tear into strips.

"What happened?" the Iowan croaked, mouth full of blood, shock setting in. "Who did this to me?"

Joe didn't recognize the flash of clothing, but the marksmanshipwas familiar.

"His name's Nate Romanowski," Joe said.

"Who?" Demming asked.

"Friend of mine," Joe said to the Iowan. "If he wanted to hit you in the head and kill you, you wouldn't be talking right now."

11.

"HOW LONG AGO WERE THEY HERE?" CLAY MCCANN asked Sheila while picking up the business cards. He was agitated.

"I don't know-three hours, maybe."

"What did they want?"

"Gee, Clay," she said, rolling her eyes, "maybe they wanted to ask you about shooting four people dead."

Annoyed, he looked up at her from the cards. He recognized the woman's name-Demming. She was one of the first on the scene at Bechler. She was no heavy hitter within the park, he knew that. Nothing special. But . . . a game warden game warden?

Sheila looked back at him with insolence. She was a poor fill-in for the receptionist who quit. Too much att.i.tude, too much mouth. He wanted to tell her to tone down her act or he'd lose what few clients he still had. Then his focus changed from Sheila to the open door behind her, to the credenza and the notebooks that were clearly displayed on his desk.