High Desert Barbecue (29 page)

“
Huh?”

“
We might have argued that photos were taken out of context, but video will be a clincher.”

J
ason stood dumb for a long moment. Then he sighed.

“
This just gets better and better.”

S
tanding at his side, Samantha rested a hand on his arm, but said nothing.

J
ason sighed again.

“
Shit. This is why I hate technology.”

Chapter 65

S
tep after plodding step, Lani climbed the steep path to the trailhead. Hot, sweaty work, it was an accomplishment, but a small one. Miles of empty, unpaved road awaited her unless somebody was parked at the trailhead. She’d seen nobody but the crazed ranger on the trail, so she prepared herself for an extended hike.

L
urking in the back of her mind, pushed there by conscious effort, was the memory of Champ shot and lying in the dirt. As her self-appointed guardian and constant companion, the dog had earned her love and respect. Champ had placed himself in harm’s way more than once to protect his mistress, and she knew his loss would hurt even when the memory was no longer fresh.

A
s for the dead ranger … Fuck ‘im.

M
aybe she should feel remorse for shooting the man, but she felt only satisfaction. The ranger was an arsonist and had threatened Lani and her friends even before he’d shot Champ. Killing him couldn’t bring Champ back, but it protected her own life. It even, she felt, balanced the scales a bit for the death of the dog.

S
he’d had a cell phone signal—however tentative—for a while, now, and she’d considered following Scott’s instructions for uploading the video from the phone. But the rest of his plan—specifically, the mailing list of journalists—required a computer, and she felt more comfortable at a keyboard than picking her way through a smart phone with her thumbs anyway.

S
he’d also considered calling for help, but who? It was tough enough
before
she shot the ranger. So far as she knew, the Forest Service had jurisdiction out here, with maybe some input from the county sheriff’s department. Calling the Forest Service to complain about homicidal, naked Forest Service employees running amok struck her as a risky venture at best. Calling
any
law-enforcement agency after she’d plugged a psycho in a uniform smacked of suicide. Cops might have their intrafamilial spats, but she had no doubt that, like members of a dysfunctional family, they’d close ranks very quickly against an outsider who’d proven a quicker shot than one of their own, however deranged that one had been.

N
o, she couldn’t risk calling for help until the video was in public view.

T
he trailhead sign came into view, and with it, the possibility of assistance for her mission. Summoning her reserves, Lani pushed her way up the last few steps and discovered that she had company. Two large people—a man and a woman—stood in place studying a piece of paper tacked to the trail sign. They were dressed in matching straw cowboy hats, collared western-style denim shirts and blue jeans.

“
Closed?” the man asked, tugging at the brim of his hat. “Why is the trail closed?”

T
he woman next to him shrugged. Her face was hidden in shadow under her own hat, but she seemed as puzzled as her companion.

T
he man turned to Lani as she stepped out past the sign.

“
Was the trail closed when you went in?”

L
ani shook her head.

“
What? I don’t think so. There’s no reason for the trail to be closed.” She stopped speaking as she saw the hand-lettered sign. Her mouth dropped open, and then snapped shut.

“
Oh. I bet that was put there by the ranger I shot.”

S
he caught herself.

“
Oh shit. I know how that sounds. I mean he deserved it because he shot my dog and was part of a gang of crazy arsonists.”

T
he large couple stared. The man scratched at his jaw. The woman twirled a canteen by its canvas strap.

“
Umm … ” Lani said. “I’m not really presenting this right, am I?”

“
Well,” the man said, worrying again at the brim of his hat. “The part about shooting a ranger might put most folks off, but we like to think of ourselves as open-minded. Why don’t you start from the beginning?”

Chapter 66

D
esperate as he was to reach Lani, Scott knew he had to move carefully. Rather than drop down to the canyon floor and risk a confrontation with the firebugs below, he climbed to the top of the mesa to find a trail that paralleled the lower trail and intercepted it near the trailhead. Rollo had used the higher trail when he’d buried his cache, and he said it was an easier hike than the canyon floor.

O
f course,
easier
was a relative term. By the time he made it to the mesa’s top, he was already out of breath. Scrapes oozing blood marred his forearms and a spot on his left shin promised to swell and turn purple.

H
e then lost precious minutes following game traces and meandering tracks stamped by grazing cattle. Each path started out promisingly before wandering in circles and then petering out—or forking into multiple trails.

O
ne promising lead faded, only to be followed by another, and another—each ending in a cactus, a cliff or a mess of hoof prints left by cattle seemingly as confused as he was himself.

P
anic had begun to set in when he stumbled on a cairn marking the true trail. A small pile of rocks left by hikers, rangers or cattlemen, its sight removed a huge burden from Scott’s shoulders. Once the first cairn was spotted, the next followed in short order. From then on he hopped from cairn to cairn, following the stones through the desert as if they were breadcrumbs.

T
he hours passed in a blur. Despite his best intentions, his pace slackened. The sun was high, the day was hot, and he had few reserves left after the chase through the canyon.

S
cott bypassed a muddy bowl in the ground even though his pack grew lighter with each sip taken from the drinking tube. The water was brown, opaque with dirt stirred up by the dumb beasts cooling themselves in the liquid. He wasn’t yet out of water, and was far from thirsty enough to be tempted by the cow shit-tainted muck.

T
he sound of a shot in the distance sent an almost electric surge through his body.

I
t came from ahead, down in the canyon. Yes, echoes could deceive, but he was sure the sound came from ahead.

H
e was already sprinting when two more shots rang out, but he couldn’t maintain the pace. The breath caught in his throat and his pack swayed on his back. He settled into a trot. Air hissed in and out of his mouth as he stifled gasps.

T
he trail here was better delineated than it had been earlier. While not exactly much-traveled, it had seen enough use over the years to wear an ankle deep scar in the landscape.

A
t last, the trail began to trend downward. Despite a stitch in his side, he maintained a trot wherever the trail allowed for quick passage. Sweat poured from his skin and pasted his shirt to his body. His left hand, clasped around the lightweight stock of the .22, had passed beyond pain and grown numb.

A
t Sycamore Creek he paused long enough to scoop water in double-handfuls into his mouth, and then over his head.

O
n the far side of the creek, he had a decision to make. Here, the trail forked. The right-hand path led upwards toward the trailhead; the left-hand path doubled back where he’d come from.

T
rusting to instinct, Scott turned left. If Lani is in trouble, he reasoned, she’d be farther back on the trail, held up by the missing firebug. If she’s
still
in trouble, a treacherous voice in his head said. He did his best to ignore the gibe.

H
e was still in a frenzy sometime later when he rounded a bend in the trail and nearly stumbled over a corpse.

T
he first impression that struck Scott—aside from shock at the discovery of a body in the middle of a hiking trail—was that the corpse looked surprised. A look of open-mouthed astonishment had survived the unlucky fellow.

S
cott prodded the stiff with the barrel of the .22 rifle.

Y
es, he was very dead.

T
he second impression that struck him was that the dead man appeared to have been illused even before his untimely death. His ranger uniform was torn and grubby, and he had several obvious injuries that seemed to pre-date his demise. Scott rifled the man’s pockets and found a Park Service law-enforcement badge to match the Sig in the dirt. It was an interesting contrast to the Forest Service uniform, but Scott mentally filed it away as just a minor item in several days of weirdness.

C
arefully, eyes straying again and again to the body on the ground, Scott searched the area for clues to what happened. In short order, he discovered an odd pile of stones. Soon after, he uncovered the body of Champ.

“
Oh, Lani,” he groaned. “Well, of course a cop would shoot a dog. Good for you for shooting back.”

He quickly restored Champ’s makeshift grave, and then sprinted back up the trail the way he’d come.

Chapter 67

“
Thank you
so
much,” Lani gushed. “I can’t tell you what a relief it was to run into somebody at the trailhead. After what we’ve been through … It’s just … are you sure it’s OK with you that I use your computer?” She knew she was babbling, but she couldn’t help herself. The words streamed out in a torrent, uncorked by her relief at meeting people who didn’t want to shoot at her.

“
Not a problem,” Bill McGinty answered from the driver’s seat of his dusty pickup truck. “That might be a small screen on that phone of yours, but I know what I saw. We’re happy to be of help. Are you sure you don’t want to go to the hospital or the police before you do anything else?”

I
n the rear left jump seat, Lani vigorously shook her head.

“
No. That man back there was a ranger and one of my friends is convinced the Forest Service is behind this. If he’s right, the cops may not be of any help.”

“
You know that’s true, Bill,” Emma chimed in. “Those uniformed types can be a tight bunch.” She turned in the shotgun seat and shot the younger woman a wink. “We’ve had our own run-ins with the law.”

“
Oh?”

B
ill chuckled.

“
To hear some folks tell it. We’re regular public enemies.”

T
he McGintys laughed uproariously.

B
ounced from side to side in the jump seat, Lani mentally filed the mysterious private joke for later attention, once she’d fully processed the events of the past few days. She had enough to worry about now without prying into the private lives of her rescuers.

“
We’ll have to call the police at some point,” Emma continued. “But let’s get done what you need to get done first.”

A
s the truck rumbled down the long dirt road leading away from Sycamore Canyon, Lani caught sight of a wrecked Park Service truck by the side of the road. She wondered if it had any connection to the ranger she’d met on the trail, then promptly forgot the matter.

Chapter 68

S
cott took the last 100 yards of the trail at a pace much slower than the sprint he intended. The trail climbed steeply uphill here and was terraced in places with rough steps to ease the passage of hikers. The steps were a thoughtful addition for most users of the trail, but they were nothing more than a series of hurdles for a man dragging his feet with fatigue.

A
nd Scott was
tired
. At the best of times, he slept poorly during his first night on a backpacking trip. The ground was too lumpy, the moon too bright, the sounds of night different than the muffled street noises and muffled groans of refrigerator and heating system that he heard at home. By the second night he was acclimated to the outdoors and slept like a baby.