Endangered (9781101559017) (17 page)

Under the bill of the black cap, the leader's gaze remained steely. “We got the right to carry,” he said.

“True enough,” Kent said.
Thank you, Congress.
“But you don't have the right to shoot weapons in the park.”

“But the cougar hunt . . .” the last one in line began, then let his words trail off.

“There is no cougar hunt.” Kent unfolded his arms, rested a hand on his service belt, wishing for once that the metal flashlight under his fingers was a pistol. “Anyone caught injuring wildlife here can be charged with a federal offense.”

The two dog handlers exchanged looks of confusion. The leader pulled his cap down. “First we've heard of it,” he growled.

“Now you know,” Kent said. “It's also illegal to even carry a weapon if you've been drinking. If you leave the park immediately, return home, and lock up those guns, I'll let you go. Otherwise, I'll have to write you a citation.”

The three stared at him. Pushing aside the strap of his backpack, he unbuttoned the flap of his shirt pocket and reached for the citation pad inside. “It won't be cheap,” he warned.

“We're on our way out,” the leader mumbled, already turning his back to Kent. The second in line incongruously murmured “Thanks” before the whole troop wheeled around and started down the trail.

Kent trailed the three men for a half mile, making sure they were headed back toward the park's north entrance. He called in the incident and asked for a ranger to meet the men at the trailhead and make sure they left the park. Then he turned off on the trail toward Navajo Leap. He still had six miles to cover and God knew how many jerks to lecture before reaching Mesa Camp. The last time he'd been on this route for backcountry patrol, he'd seen a spotted skunk, a white-breasted Swainson's hawk, and a coachwhip chasing down a pocket mouse. While he realized that such biodiversity was probably too much to hope for on this trip, he hoped that at least the animals would outnumber the assholes.

 

BY late afternoon Sam had gained the plateau, where the air, while still warm and heavy from the relentless sun, seemed somehow more breathable. A helicopter reverberated overhead. Looking up, she spotted a pair of legs and a rifle muzzle hanging from an open side door. Who was riding shotgun? And why? Had Thompson already lost what little spine he had left?

She had to give SWF something to use on their website, some sort of defense against the television news, against websites like Sane World and its ilk. Did she dare write about Fischer's record or Zack's adoptive status? She couldn't identify sources. But enough people had heard about the ransom note and the shoe on the trail for those to be called public knowledge. The phone and laptop had been biting into her back all day; it was time to head back to her camp and fire off the only ammunition she had: words.

At the top of the rise where line-of-sight communications would be most clear, she turned on the radio and caught Kent reporting an encounter with hunters near the Hawk. The thought of her friend, armed only with pepper spray, facing down three rifles made her nauseous. But he'd sounded upbeat when he said he was on his way to Mesa Camp for the night. The guy had balls.

As she rounded a pile of boulders, she nearly collided with a tall figure walking in her direction. She stopped in her tracks, startled, then catching her breath, murmured, “Hello.”

The jerkiness of the man's movements told her that he'd been startled, too. His hair, a dull reddish brown, was cut in ragged chunks, as if he'd trimmed it himself without benefit of a mirror. Compared to the tanned skin around his eyes, his cheeks were pale, as if he'd shaved off a heavy beard recently. His jean shorts drooped on his thin frame and his dirty tennis shoes had holes in the toes. Around his waist was tied a brown shirt. In his hand he held a cluster of half-eaten red grapes.

As if deciding she was not an enemy, he beamed a smile at her. “Hi.” He thrust the fruit toward her. “Grapes?”

The small red globes smelled heavenly. Did he mean her to take one or two, or the whole bunch?

“Don't worry, I have more.” He thrust them closer.

“Thanks,” Sam said, taking the cluster from him. “You know you're off the trail.”

He gave her a quizzical look. “As are you.”

Touché. Since he didn't have a pack, she asked, “Just out for the day?”

He winked. “For the rest of my life. How about you?”

Pulling off a grape, she popped it into her mouth, unsure how to continue this strange conversation. She didn't want to go on her way and run the risk of revealing her camp, which was only a short distance away. Feeling a prickle of unease, she wondered if he'd already discovered her tent and her cache of equipment. She checked his eyes for evidence of drugs, but his blue-eyed gaze was serene, even friendly. And if he had stumbled upon her camp, he'd clearly taken nothing. He was not even carrying a knapsack or a bottle of water.

She slowly chewed another grape. Finally, to cover her awkwardness, she mumbled, “It's a beautiful day for a hike.”

“Indeed. A gift from the Creator.”

Ah. She understood now. He was one of those religious types who chose to believe that nothing bad ever happened in the world without a good reason; that everything in life proceeded according to some mysterious plan. He wasn't smoking pot or dropping acid; his drug of choice was God.

But all was not right with the world. “Have you heard about the little boy lost down in the valley?” she asked.

“He's not lost.” The man took a step downhill.

“Wait!” Sam put out her hand. “Why do you say he's not lost?”

He tilted his head a little, studying her as if she were an unusual bug. “None of us is lost. He'll be taken care of. The Creator will provide for him.” Taking a step closer, he raised his hand and briefly stroked a knuckle down the length of the silver-blond braid that hung over Sam's shoulder. “Your hair is the color of moonlight.”

It was a little creepy, but Sam made herself stand still and wait to see what he'd do next.

He turned and walked away.

She called after his retreating form, “If you see Zack, could you tell a ranger?”

He gave no sign that he heard. “Thanks for the grapes,” she yelled.

She watched until he had disappeared from sight. Strange fellow, a little otherworldly. And his platitudes were annoying.
Have faith. God will provide.

Sam had never seen evidence that passive faith did anyone much good. There was only one religious saying that she liked: “God helps those who help themselves.” And it didn't even come from the Bible. Not to mention, it was an easy way out for God. Was she the only person who noticed that the Supreme Being seemed to have no responsibilities?

But platitudes aside, it was kind of nice to meet someone so mellow in the midst of all this furor. She liked the idea of having hair the color of moonlight. And his grapes were crisp and delicious.

Back in her private canyon, which thankfully showed no sign of intrusion, she fixed a quick dinner, mixing soup from an envelope into steaming water, then set up the computer and uplinked to the satellite. Under the headline “No Proof of Cougar Attack,” SWF had run the article she had written yesterday with few changes, accompanied by the photos of the MISSING poster and the bullet-ridden signboard.

Sam ground her teeth. Not exactly the beautiful story of nature's magic that she had envisioned. There was a second page, however, in which the SWF crew had inserted standard text about geologic features and climbing opportunities at Heritage National Monument, along with a grainy photo of teenagers rappelling down a cliff that came from the video clip she'd sent. She leaned closer. Why hadn't they used a film sequence instead of making a frame into a still image?

Suddenly a tiny figure slid down over the entire page like a spider on a silk thread. “Cowabunga!” Cameron's voice yelped from the speakers, startling Sam. Cameron stopped at the bottom of the page to high-five with another sprite, which ran over from the left margin. Then they both dissolved into the text behind them.

Sam sat back, laughing. Mad Max strikes again. At least someone was getting some enjoyment from this expedition. Cowabunga, indeed. Sam wished she were a wild teenager named Cameron right now instead of a worn-out writer named Wilderness Westin.

Steeling herself for the inevitable, she pulled up several news sites. Sane World's page ran largely unchanged. The organization had added only an ad that offered T-shirts for the “unbelievable price of $7.99!” Gleaming cougar eyes stared out from the black fabric. THEY'RE OUT THERE was scrawled in burning red letters beneath the eyes.

On KSEA's website, there was no mention of the FBI or any ransom attempt. But there was a sidebar in which the secretary of agriculture was quoted as saying, “I have authorized the dispatch of game control officers to Heritage National Monument. The government will do everything necessary to protect visitors.”

“Oh no, no, no.” She groaned and buried her face in her hands, wanting to cry. Or scream.
Please God, let Zack have been taken by a human and not a cougar
. She brought the thought up short: what was
wrong
with her?
Please,
she amended,
let Zack have just wandered off, let him be safe and sound
.

Maybe, just maybe, Zack had been found while she was hiking? She disconnected laptop from phone and then called park headquarters. The news was not promising. The Explorer Scouts had gone home. Rangers would check the backcountry. The unfamiliar voice sounded surprised when she asked if the ruins and the Curtain had been searched.

“I'd have to check that,” he said. “I'm sure every place that should be searched has been.”

This guy had a lot more faith in the park administration than she did. Right now, Thompson and Tanner seemed more interested in controlling political damage than in searching the backcountry.

She'd just set her phone down when it buzzed.

Adam. “Why didn't you use the ransom tip I gave you this morning?” she asked on answering.

“It didn't go with the other elements,” he explained. “You have to focus to create a good story.”

She felt like banging the phone against a rock. “You're focusing in the wrong direction.” She told him about the shoe.

“You made my day! What a team! So we can say a cougar carried—”

“No!” she yelped. “We don't know how the shoe got up there.”

“Okay, I got it, no need to get agitated; we're all a little stressed out right now. I'll find some way to run with it. Thanks, Sam.” And then he was gone.

We're all a little stressed out right now?
His tone of voice told her that Adam felt like a hero. She felt like a salmon swimming upstream, hoping against all odds that the result would be worth the journey.

The blades of a helicopter sounded a distant drumbeat somewhere to the south. The annoying vibration drifted away, back toward the valley. She was glad to be out of the madness down there, glad that Kent was, too. Mesa Camp was a beautiful spot on a high open plateau; he'd have a spectacular view of the sunset. She wished she were there with him instead of stuck in front of a computer.

In growing darkness, she wrote the latest about the search for Zack. She created a paragraph about the ransom delivery and car chase, then another about the shoe on Powell Trail. Sam frowned, tried to come up with a connection or at least a decent transition. After a couple of false starts, she gave up the idea of linkage and decided to emphasize the confusion of events. She stressed that no sign of cougar attack had been found—all the clues pointed to as yet unidentified humans. Zack was still out there, and he could yet be alive.

She uploaded the photo of Perez inspecting the site where the shoe had been found. His knees were bent, one hand stretched out toward the ground, his eyes fixed on something there. He'd be glad that the photo was only a three-quarter view and his face was tilted downward; he was unrecognizable.

She sat with her chin on her knees, staring at the screen. SWF had hired her to write about the cougars, and here she was sending them reports about ransom notes and recovered shoes and photos of FBI agents. How could everything go so wrong in two days?

“Oh, Zack!” She knotted her fingers into her braid and pulled until her scalp hurt. “Where are you? Please be somewhere warm and safe. And please, please, please, give me a clue where that is.”

A faint scratching noise drew her attention. Pebbles against rock, something big moving in the area just beyond the canyon mouth. The oddball with the chopped-off hair, coming back? A chill prickled down her spine.

The last glow of sunset was gone. The sky was black and empty now: the moon had not yet risen. Leaping to her feet, she blinked several times, trying to adjust her eyes to the darkness after staring at the computer screen.

She ran her hands over the dozen pockets of her vest. Where was her pepper spray? She scrambled quickly to the top of the van-sized boulders that surrounded her tent.

She scrutinized the charcoal-colored shapes of the surrounding rock, surprised at how fast her heart was beating. Solitude and wilderness had always represented security, even serenity to her. But that was before she'd learned that a kidnapper, maybe even a murderer, was skulking around the plateau.

SAM didn't need moonlight to pinpoint Agent Perez's location; his flashlight did that for her. He trudged up the hillside, moving the light around him onto the surrounding rock formations as he walked. At one point he did a little sideways leap, tripped over the bristly skeleton of a desiccated cactus. The hiss of a Spanish curse drifted up to her.