In Harm's Way Part 5

Walt looked up into the trees. "Running northwest to southeast," he said.

"Exactly," Brandon answered.

"You are are showing off, aren't you?" Fiona said to Walt. "You've been here before." showing off, aren't you?" Fiona said to Walt. "You've been here before."

"Doubtful," said Brandon before Walt could answer.

Walt silenced her with a look. "We go in silent," he said, addressing them all. "Brandon, you'll go upstream from this side." He pointed. "Gilly, we'll give you a headstart. You're to the north and I want you to come up over the lip and onto the bench the same time as I do. We'll use channel six. I'll give you two clicks. If you're in position, you'll return with two; if you need another minute, three clicks; two minutes, four."

Menquez nodded and took off into the woods without anything more said. He moved as silently as a cat.

"You," Walt said to Fiona, "will stop when I motion for you to stop. I want you behind a tree in case any shots are fired. You're not to move until I call for you. The best way you can help me right now is not to think; just follow orders. I know that runs against your grain-against your brain-but . . ."

"No problem. I get it."

"Okay. Good." He addressed Brandon. "Let's go."

Walt received three clicks from Menquez, kept an eye on his watch, and sent the two-click signal a minute later. As two clicks were returned, Walt pushed up the final incline and popped out through the forest into the gleaming sunshine. The effect on his eyes was as if he'd left twilight and stepped into the glare of spotlights. He slipped on his aviators, picking up Menquez in his peripheral vision.

Brandon, who'd beaten them both to the site, stepped out from behind a tree near the trickling stream fifty yards to Walt's left.

At the back side of the small clearing, near the stream and against the hill in a copse of aspens, was a fire ring of stones producing steam, some litter, a lean-to, and a small stack of sticks and firewood. The men came at it from three sides, an adrenaline-charged spring to their steps.

Walt dropped to a knee, placed his hand first on the firestones, then into the steam and charred wood at its center. He held up five fingers on his right hand: five minutes five minutes. He silently signaled Brandon, directing him up the hill. Brandon took off.

Walt turned around and motioned at the woods, and Beatrice came running toward him at full speed. He dropped her into a sit with a second hand signal, recharged her nose with the can of evaporated milk, and pointed into the woods.

"Find it!" he whispered.

The dog hurried off in the same direction as Brandon had gone.

Walt stirred the litter with a stick, looking for an expiration date, but found nothing.

"Our boy?" Menquez asked, studying the inside of the open lean-to.

"Someone . . . two people two people . . . bedded down here. Recent enough that the wind hasn't disturbed it." . . . bedded down here. Recent enough that the wind hasn't disturbed it."

Walt joined him. "Like last night," he said.

"Be my guess."

"Two? That doesn't fit."

He was reaching for the handheld radio as Brandon spoke. "I see two individuals," he said harshly, keeping his voice low. "Bea had a dead reckoning. It's a couple. They're on a trail maybe a half mile ahead, traversing to the south. Up and over into Greenhorn. You want me to pursue?"

"Stop them if you can," Walt said. "We're on our way."

He called to Fiona, and a moment later they were off at a run.

The couple were in their late twenties. The granola set. He wore a red bandana over his hair; she carried a CamelBak and backpack. They had a b.i.t.c.h Labrador that got along well with Beatrice. The dogs chased each other around the woods, throwing pine straw and growling.

"Just the one night," he answered.

"We got off late this morning," she said. "We're going to circle around the end of Greenhorn and head out that trail."

"And in what condition did you find the campsite?"

"The litter wasn't ours," the man said. "We burned what we could-"

"And I packed out some," the girl added.

"But there was just too much of it," the young man complained.

"Can I see the trash you packed out?" the sheriff asked.

The woman surrendered a plastic bag and Walt dumped it and rummaged through it. She stared long and hard at Fiona.

Brandon said, "Have you seen anyone in the last day or so? Single male?"

"No," the man answered.

"Wildlife?" Menquez asked.

"Nothing bigger than a squirrel," the woman said. "What's this about?"

"When you arrived to the campsite," Brandon said, "what condition did you find it in? Did you get any sense for how long it had been abandoned?"

"Not long," Walt said, holding up a single-serve soy milk box on the end of a stick.

"I packed that out because it's lined with some kind of foil and doesn't burn well," she said. "We found a bunch of that melted stuff in the fire ring."

Fiona ran off a series of photographs at Walt's request. Walt had pushed the melted globs into their own pile.

"Very conscientious of you," Menquez said. "Wish more campers had your sense of responsibility."

"Expiration date," Walt said, "is November."

"Juice is usually six months," Fiona said. No one questioned her. "It would have sold in late May or June."

"But not July?"

"Iffy," she said. "It's possible, but that's a popular brand. I doubt it stays on the shelves that long. You could check."

"The Berkholders," Walt said, speculating.

"Soy milk's irradiated. Could be a pantry item," Fiona said. "Why not?"

"What's going on?" the woman camper repeated. "Are you looking for someone?" She met eyes with her partner, who appeared anxious.

"We could use some help," Brandon said.

"Hey," the woman said, addressing Fiona, "I know where I know you. Aren't you . . . ? Didn't you save that kid, that drowning kid?"

"Anything you can tell us," Fiona said-Walt making note of her choice of p.r.o.nouns-"will be kept strictly confidential, and could really help us. This is important. This is the county sheriff. He's out here personally, just to give you some idea. Think about that."

The woman checked with the man again. He shook his head nearly imperceptibly, but Fiona caught it.

"What?" Fiona asked. "Please. Help us."

"I was," the woman said. The man shook his head more vehemently, cutting her off. "We're all grownups here," she clarified. "I was sun-bathing. No shirt. You know," she said to Fiona. "It was a glorious afternoon. One thing led to another. Jimmy and I . . . we enjoyed the fresh air together. Out there in the middle of the clearing. On a Therm-a-Rest. I may have gotten a little vocal, I think." She blushed. "The point being that both of us . . . we both thought we heard something. Up the hill. We were still . . . and I . . . you know . . . I didn't want to . . ."

"Stop," said Jimmy.

The woman laughed nervously and shrugged.

"But we both heard him," Jimmy said.

"It was probably just a deer," she said.

"Was not!" said Jimmy. "And you know it."

"This is yesterday afternoon?" Walt said, clarifying.

"Four o'clock maybe," the woman said. "The sun was still very hot."

"He was returning to the campsite?" Walt proposed to his team.

"Maybe he's rotating between two or three," Menquez said. "We see a lot of that. With the five-day limit, they stay clear of us by moving every five days. Not much we can do about it."

"Him?" Walt asked the man.

"She won't admit it now," Jimmy said, "but she was the one who said it felt like someone was watching."

The woman looked a little sheepish. She looked at Fiona. "Sometimes you just get this sixth sense, you know, that someone has their eye on you. You know what I'm talking about. And it always gives me the creeps. Or nearly always. I felt it yesterday, and to be honest, I don't know, maybe it's just where we were, the setting and all, but it kind of turned me on."

"Jesus," Jimmy groaned, "Kind of? Why don't you just describe every detail?"

"That's why we didn't stop," she said. "I didn't exactly feel like stopping."

"Can we stop now?" Jimmy asked. "Please?"

"My deputy will take down your statement."

"You've been very helpful," Fiona said. "I know that's not easy."

"Is there some creep out here?" Jimmy asked. "Is that what you're telling us?"

"Honestly, if I were you," Walt said, "I might try the Pioneers or the Boulders. Someplace north."

"You see?" he said to the woman, blaming her for all their trouble. He called for their dog and started off down the trail.

The woman stayed behind and gave Brandon their names and phone numbers.

"Sorry about that," Brandon said.

"Oh, well," she said. "He'll get over it."

"I can sit on this campsite," Menquez offered. "Maybe we get lucky and he comes back."

"Observation only," Walt said. "No action. These guys . . . A guy like this, Gilly . . ."

"Yes, I understand, Sheriff. If he's the one breaking into people's houses, I would want backup. Don't worry."

"Couldn't you sweep the area?" Fiona asked. "The other campsites?"

"Could, I suppose, but there's just too many," Walt said. "It would take too much manpower, too many resources for just petty theft and vandalism."

"But what if he knows that?" she complained. "What if he's counting on that?"

"Then he's right," Walt said. He whistled for Bea. The dog arrived with a deer bone in her mouth.

With the woman down the trail, the four stared at the pale white bone in the dog's mouth. It represented a violent death. No one spoke what was on their mind, if anything, but Walt looked down the trail toward the hiker, hoping that she and Jimmy would heed his advice.

7.

Fiona waved her finger through the gauzy column of steam rising from the teacup alongside her computer, breaking apart and swirling into separate coils. She considered trying to photograph the image, to capture it, to stop it in time. This was the part of photography that fascinated her: the stoppage of time, owning a particular moment. Forever. Leave composition and color to others, she thought of herself as an archivist.

She dragged a shot of the Berkholders' vandalized refrigerator to her "best-of " folder, admiring how it offered something new to the collection.

As she clicked the computer mouse, she heard a synchronous thud against the cottage's outside wall. At first she allowed herself to believe it was the aspen tree on the southwest corner; the tree grew incredibly close to the wall, often banging against it when the wind blew.

But there's no wind tonight, she thought.

And though the woods were full of such sounds-unexplainable creaks and cracks-she'd come to discern a difference between the sounds of nature and the sounds of animals in nature. The sound hadn't resulted from a tree limb falling, or a pine tree splitting; it had sounded more like something slapping the cottage's clapboard siding.