Gray Ghost Murders (9781101606070) (20 page)

PART THREE

THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME

It had to be the Indian, the ponytail a dead giveaway even at half a mile. The Indian was pausing at the trail junction. He was in the shade of trees, only his red headband visible. Then the Indian turned up the trail toward the saddle, into the sunlight. The watcher waited until the man had hiked out of sight and then he set down the binoculars. His hand went automatically to the dog, his fingers worrying the fur.

Unlike the hiker he'd seen on Sunday and could not be sure he recognized, the Indian he'd seen before. It had been on Monday, the second morning of his arrangement with the simian man, the man having failed to show on the first day. The watcher had been overlooking the trail when a party of hikers appeared below him. The Indian was accompanied by another man and two women, one with a dog at her heel and the other appearing to wear some sort of uniform. There had been an air of authority about the group that gave the watcher concern. Now, only three days later, a member of that party was again coming up the trail.

The watcher ran his tongue over his cracked lips. He sucked at his mustache. Had he dropped or left something on the bench, a cartridge case, maybe the butt of one his handrolled cigarettes? He knew he'd dropped a cartridge case last summer when the Mexican had fired and missed and he had run to keep abreast of him and, running, had tried to finger a spent cartridge case out of the breech of the big double rifle and dropped it. He'd fumbled in a loaded cartridge and fired as the man crossed a break in the trees, the man stumbling at the shot. The watcher had followed the blood trail into the lodgepoles to the lee of a big rock where the Mexican was sitting down, blowing a bubble of blood out of his mouth. The man had looked at him with unfocused eyes, one long rattling exhalation collapsed his chest, and then the chest heaved to breathe and the breath caught and the Mexican's eyes swam out of his head, and when the last, long, gurgling exhalation followed, he was already dead. The Mexican had been dying for ten minutes until the watcher walked up on him and was holding a Spanish-language Bible open in his right hand, a crimson ribbon folded into the crease between the pages.

For a long minute the watcher experienced a remorse so deeply felt that he could not draw breath. Finally he had gulped air like a man surfacing from a cliff dive. Shuddering gasps escaped him and he sobbed, not wiping at the tears. “What have I done?” he said aloud. He sat rocking back and forth with the Mexican's head in his lap, cleaning off his mouth and stroking his hair with his callused palm. Then he took off his boot and sock to put his big right toe into the trigger guard of the rifle. For minutes he'd sat with the twin barrels pressed to his temple. But crying had emptied him of the resolve to press the five ounces of resistance that would trip the right-hand sear.

Back at home, he dug the Mexican's Bible out of his saddlebag and opened it to the crimson ribbon. Job 1:21 was underlined in blue bottle ink. Being unable to read Spanish, he set the book down and found the King James version on his bedstand.

Naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return thither: the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.

“I'll be,” he muttered aloud, for it was a passage he'd read many times, first thinking that the mother was the literal mother and then with the understanding that “mother” referred to the lifeblood of Earth. It was the end he intended for himself, to be buried back into the mountain breast. But the Mexican had missed his shot and he hadn't, it was that simple. It was the next morning before he realized he had left an empty cartridge shell somewhere on the bench. He'd gone back but had been unable to find it.

It had seemed to matter, and then as the summer passed it hadn't, and now, a year later . . . well, almost nothing mattered now. The disease was flexing its muscles, playing with the power of its grip. It had advanced to the point where seeing the Indian caused no more than a flicker of concern. It would not interfere with his arrangement if, in fact, there was still a chance of death with honor. But the simian man had not come on the appointed day, nor the second, nor the third, nor now the day after that. The watcher glanced around where his grandfather's buffalo gun leaned against a tree trunk. Beyond it rose a wisp of smoke from the ashes of his cooking fire, and in the dappled shade of the pines, his horse with one leg up dozed. He shook his head.

“We've got enough beans for one more day, girl,” the watcher said, and his hand jumped on the dog's neck.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

The Decoy

W
hen Martinique opened the door, she was still wearing the sailor uniform she'd worn to work and had her hair pinned up under a cap tilted jauntily to the side.

Stranahan was taken aback for a moment, then said, “Permission to come aboard?”

“I like the sound of that,” she said.

“Isn't that outfit a little demure for Lookers and Lattes?”

“Not if I unbutton it,” she said, unbuttoning two buttons.

“I know it's hopelessly old-fashioned of me, but I really wish you had a different job.”

Martinique gave him a look and rebuttoned the buttons. “Sean, we've been through this. If you can find me a four-hour shift that pays as well, I will. But right now the most important thing is my studies and I need time for that. I can't have a full-time job.”

“Didn't Jeff Svenson offer you something?”

“Jeff Svenson offered me the privilege of working beside him at his clinic for free. And I'm going to start doing it a few hours a week because a couple years from now he might want to take on another vet, and if he likes my work, I could have a job when I graduate. Wouldn't you like me to come back to Montana?”

“I guess we never talked about it.”

“You know I have to do my last four years in Oregon. I'll have to move back at the end of January.”

“I know. But everything was so easy, I was still taking it a day at a time.”

“Did you ever think there's a reason it's easy? It's not like it's happened this way before, relationships with men. You and me, we just fit. Don't we?” She looked down. “I thought we did.”

“Hey, where's my smile?” Sean said. He put his fingers under her chin and she looked up. Her eyes glistened.

“I'm sorry,” she said. “I didn't mean to bring this up. I don't want to scare you away.”

“You aren't.” He kissed the tip of her nose.

“You can do better than that,” she said, and ran her fingers through his hair and looked seriously at him, and closed her eyes and kissed him, her lips parting and the kiss saying the unspoken words that waited for the moment.

“You smell like something,” she said, pulling back from him. “What is it?”

“Gunpowder. Among other things.”

“Why don't you wash up? We're cooking outside tonight. Sam Meslik's coming by to grill something he called speedy goat. I'm making a salad. What's speedy goat?”

“Pronghorn antelope. This is . . . ah, I didn't think you'd met Sam.”

“He came by the hut when I was closing up. He said it was about time he introduced himself on account of he'd lose his fishing buddy if I didn't approve and just heard lies about him.”

“Do you approve?”

“I do. I like men who are bigger than life. My dad was, when he'd come home from work wearing that big stag shirt and smelling like pine sap and sawdust, it was like six people came into the room. Our house never had a lock, did I tell you that? Everybody was welcome, all these brute loggers who'd leave their caulks on the stoop and wore suspenders. They all had nicknames—Ham Bone, Four-Fingered Ollie, a guy who called himself the Pope. Your Sam would have fit right in. They'd come over for Sunday afternoon potlucks.”

“Sam's a good cook.”

“So he told me.”

They turned in unison to the crunch of gravel in the drive.

“Here he is. He's got Killer riding shotgun. Are your cats in?”

“They're up in the bedroom. I'll shut the door.”

•   •   •

“K
imosabe,” Sam said, pushing by Stranahan with packages under both arms, glancing around for the kitchen and slapping a plastic bag of bloody meat on the granite countertop.

“I seen this place a hundred times and wondered what it looked like inside. Sorta like living inside a rocket made out of barn wood. What do you have to do, climb the stairs outside to get to the loft up there?”

Stranahan nodded.

Sam craned his head to see the cupola six stories up. “Far fucking out.” He pried the caps off three bottles of Moose Drool with the back of his folding knife.

“Just take over the kitchen, why don't you?” Stranahan said.

“I wouldn't want to displace you.”

Martinique came down the steps. She'd let her hair down and changed into jeans and a blue cotton shirt with white stitching.

“The lovely Cannelle,” Sam said, handing her a beer. “Don't worry about Killer. He'll stay in the bed of the truck.”

“Thank you, good sir.” They touched bottles.

“What have I missed?” Stranahan said.

“My birth name is Cannelle,” Martinique said. “Sam pried it out of me. He's very persuasive when he wants to be.”

“I told her there's a law in Montana against any name that makes you think of palm trees and piña coladas. It puts the natives at a psychological disadvantage.”

“Why didn't you tell me?”

“Well, Martinique is what my mother called me, I told you why, and it stuck. My father had a grandmother named Cannelle back in Provence, in a place called Carpentras. Cannelle means cinnamon. My dad said I smelled like cinnamon so all the boys would be after me.”

“And I bet they were,” Sam said.

“Well, I was just a tomboy then with gangly legs and a big forehead.”

“Before you traded your jumper for the sailor uniform.”

“Well, I wouldn't have had anything to put in it then.”

“Anybody tell you there's something to put in it now?”

Martinique blushed, but recovered quickly. “Anybody say you look like a timber wolf with a mane?”

“Did your boyfriend tell you some of my wolf blood saved his life last year?”

“He did. Lucky for him it doesn't show.”

Stranahan thought,
A few minutes ago she's kissing me with tears in her eyes, talking about how well we fit, and I didn't even know her name
. He went out the back door to light the coals. Crows were mobbing a red-tailed hawk, flocking toward the Bitterroot horizon, indigo clouds rimmed in lemon neon. He heard the screen door creak.

“You two seemed to have hit it off,” he said without turning around.

Sam grunted. “I like her a sight better than that Beaudreux woman last year. She was exotic as a mynah bird, but you got the feeling there was a bubble around her and nobody could get in there but her. So you ever hear from her?”

“She called a couple months ago.” Stranahan doused a mound of coals with lighter fluid and shot a match at it. “Middle of the night, like always.”

“And . . . ?”

“And nothing. She creates this world that's just the two of you, like you're the last lovers on earth, except that for some reason she just can't see you in person. Then in the morning it's like she was never there in the first place. But Martinique's for real. She's right in front of you. You get all of her.”

“Except for her name,” Sam corrected.

“That minor detail.”

“How does a fuckup like you get a babe like her?”

“Because I like cats, I guess. You have no idea how much nerve it took for me to talk to her at the kiosk. I know how lucky I am.”

“Well, before you jump down my throat for ruining any romantic plans you had for the evening, I have something to tell you. I invited myself over 'cause you got no cell service here and this can't wait.”

“And . . .”

“Well, I can't tell you yet 'cause I don't exactly know. Peachy was going to call and tell me, but then I'd have no way to get a hold of you because I figured you were out here and gonna spend the night. But then I stopped by the hut and Cannelle said she's got email, so I called Peachy back and gave him the address. He says he'll send a message to her computer sometime tonight. So anyway, that's why I invited my ass over. Plus I got this goat defrosted and Darla bailed on me.”

“Are you two back together?”

“I don't know. She told me she missed the hugs, but she doesn't regard me as quote, ‘relationship material.' So I guess that's a way of saying we're fucking.” Sam took the tongs from Stranahan's hand and scraped the coals to either side of the grill. “I never thought I'd say it, but I'm getting to a point in my life where I want more.”

“You're just finally growing up.”

“Shoot me if I ever do.”

“What's this about Peachy? It has something to do with earlier today, doesn't it?”

“Peachy says the chimp didn't tell you and the sheriff all there was to know. But he hinted to Harriet after you'd gone and now she's trying to get him to open up, and Mel says he will but not if she tells the sheriff. So they're at a standoff. But she's got the tool to make him talk and I'm guessing the longer she keeps her cat under cotton, the quicker he hollers. That man's about starved for poon. We boot up the computer in an hour, there's going to be a message.”

“Let's check right now,” Stranahan said.

There was no message.

Martinique said, “What are you two up to?” Her voice from the kitchen.

“Can you tell her about it?”

“I don't know.”

“Tell me about what?”

“It's nothing,” Stranahan called back.

“So,” Sam said, lifting his beer bottle when they were sitting at the picnic table, “here's to love that's a thousand miles long and comes in ten-inch installments.”

“You wish,” Martinique said.

•   •   •

T
he message from Peachy Morris was boldfaced in the inbox when Stranahan checked at eleven. He asked Martinique for the closest place he could get a bar off a cell tower. She said two miles east on the old Amsterdam Road. And he was out the door.

Sam sat at the desk where Martinique had plugged in her laptop, the message staring at him while Martinique read it over his shoulder:

Harriet says that everything Mel Kauffeld said was true except it wasn't the whole truth because the guy Wade said he would keep coming back if Mel didn't show up the first or second day. In case Mel felt bad or something he'd have a little more leeway. She tried to pin him down on how many days and Mel said four but she thinks he was maybe just throwing out a number to get her off his back about it. Anyway, he didn't tell the sheriff because he didn't want Wade to get caught or die in a shoot-out but Harriet convinced him he's guilty of withholding evidence in a murder investigation if he didn't come clean. So that's all I know. Hey are you booked day after tomorrow? I got four people want to fish and need a second boat for a lower Mad run. They're yours if you want them. Meet me at Crapper Corner at six or if you can't maybe Stranny? But let me know one way or the other or I'll have to give them to Whitefish Ernie. Peachy.

“He could learn how to use a comma,” Martinique said. “So this is what was nothing, huh? Doesn't sound like nothing. What's it mean, Sam?”

“I can't make it,” he said absently. “The float Peachy mentioned, day after tomorrow. You'll have to ask Sean if he can cover for me.”

She repeated her question.

Sam came back from somewhere else. “It means something that looked like it was over isn't over. Maybe.”

“Now you've got me worried.”

Sam grunted, trying to think three steps ahead of the page that faced him. His face was grim.

•   •   •

T
he last time Stranahan had been to Martha Ettinger's house after sunset, he had heard the four-note inquiry of a great gray owl. But it was nearly midnight, the owl silent in the bottom of Hellroaring Canyon, nothing but the murmur of the creek. When he came to the section that Ettinger had mentioned was for sale, he shut off the motor and rolled down the window to listen. And thought,
I could live here.
He allowed himself to expand on his reverie, subconsciously understanding that it could be the last moment of reflection he might enjoy in some time. He pictured the small log home he would build. He pictured stringing a rod and hiking down to the creek to catch brook trout for supper. He saw himself sitting on a porch swing. And Martinique was there.

•   •   •

H
e turned the key to crank the starter. “Would that I could,” he said.

Ten minutes later he was sitting in Ettinger's kitchen, declining her offer of tea.

“Not if I want to sleep tonight. Or is that why you're offering? You need me to stay awake.”

“I don't know. I've put everyone into place except you and Harold, and he's off the rez, so to speak. Or rather off to the rez. He checked in after climbing the mountain this afternoon and said he had some personal business in Browning. A family matter.” She shrugged and took a sip of tea. “You get out of town up there, you might as well throw your cell phone out the window for the good it will do you. I tried calling him a couple times.”

Stranahan listened impatiently, his mind jumping ahead. “So what are you thinking? Send somebody up to the Sphinx with a red hat and a rifle and see if you can trick this guy into making his move?”

Martha compressed her lips. “I've been back and forth on it. I don't like the idea of painting a bull's-eye on somebody's back, but I can't see any other way. Not if we're going to get enough evidence to stick.”

“It might be easier if we knew who was going to be waiting there with a gun. Buster Garrett didn't seem the type when I met him, but he's the only person who fits the description Melvin Kauffeld gave us. Think about it. He outfits on Sphinx Mountain. He's aware of ‘The Most Dangerous Game.' And he knows Crawford. It's three strikes. I don't know how he got ahold of Crawford's gun, but he must have. I know we had our doubts about him—”

Ettinger raised her hand to stop him. “I don't need convincing,” she said. “There's something you don't know.”