Mountain Rampage (8 page)

When they realized Chuck had nothing to say, the students turned and headed up the walk to Raven House. Chuck slung
his pack over his shoulder and motioned Clarence and Kirina to his side.

“Stick close to the dorm,” he told them. “I want to know who's talking to who, whether anybody's acting shady.”

A corner of Kirina's mouth drew up. “
Acting shady
?” She crossed her arms over her chest. “I can tell you one thing. Whatever this is, no one from Team Nugget is involved. My girls aren't thieves, and they're not knife-wielding maniacs either.”

Clarence declared, “My guys aren't involved either. I'm sure of it.”

Breaking the students into two work teams had been Clarence's idea. Chuck had expected problems when the students had self-selected their teams along gender lines. To his surprise, however, the members of the two teams had gotten along well with each other at the mine and during their off hours throughout the summer.

“Nobody's accusing anybody of anything at this point,” Chuck said. “Just keep your eyes open, okay? Both of you.”

He hurried across the fields, past the lodge and conference center, and up the curving drive through the woods to the cabin. He owed Professor Sartore a call, but Rosie took priority—as did squaring things with Janelle.

He released his bottled-up breath when he saw the pickup still parked where he'd left it upon returning from the hospital the night before. But a vehicle he didn't recognize—a rugged SUV with a Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation sticker on its bumper and a mountain bike attached to a rack on its roof—was parked next to the truck. Janelle opened the cabin's front screen door as Chuck approached, allowing Gregory, the young doctor from the emergency room, to step onto the wooden deck ahead of her.

Gregory hailed Chuck from the uncovered porch with a
wave and a wide smile. “Yo, dude.”

Chuck stopped at the bottom of the short flight of stairs leading to the deck. “Hey.”

Janelle, trailing Gregory out the door, came to an abrupt halt at the sight of Chuck. “Gregory called and asked if he could make a house call,” she explained.

Gregory flipped his blond hair out of his eyes with a toss of his head. “I finished my shift. Figured I'd swing by, make sure Rosie was cool.”

Chuck's eyes went from the young doctor to Janelle and back. He addressed Gregory, keeping his voice even. “I take it everything's…
cool
?”

Janelle spoke first. “I told him she was doing fine when he called.”

Gregory shrugged. “I got a few hours of shut-eye last night, after you guys left. Usually I go straight home and hit the sack at the end of my shifts.”

Chuck knew he should say something appreciative. Unlike the doctor, however, he hadn't gotten any sleep last night. Besides, his appreciation would be expressed through his payment of the medical bill.

“Guess I'll get going then,” Gregory said when Chuck didn't speak. The young physician turned and pointed a friendly finger at Rosie and Carmelita, who stood together behind the screen door. “Glad to see you doing so well, Rosie. And you, Carmelita, take good care of your little sister for me, okay?”

“Okay,” Carmelita said with a shy smile before looking at her feet.

Chuck stood aside to allow Gregory to descend the stairs. When the doctor was well down the drive in his SUV, Chuck climbed the steps to Janelle and summoned a smile. “She's really doing okay, huh?”

Janelle rigidly accepted a peck on the cheek. He turned at the
sound of pounding feet to see Rosie hurtling herself across the porch at him.

“Chuck!” she cried, diving into his arms. “I'm all better now. I'm the bestest ever.”

Chuck lifted her and settled her on his hip, her legs dangling past his knees. “You are, are you?” He looked to Janelle for confirmation.

“She slept late this morning,” Janelle said. “She's been her usual, rip-roaring self since lunchtime. It's all I've been able to do to get her to stay inside and take it easy.”

Chuck lowered Rosie to the porch and crouched to speak to her and Carmelita, who had trailed Rosie onto the deck. “Why don't you two rip-roar back inside. Your
mamá
and I will be along in a minute.”

Rosie followed Carmelita into the cabin. Chuck tossed his pack on one of the plastic deck chairs arrayed on the porch and motioned Janelle to follow him down the steps. He dropped the truck tailgate and took a seat on it. She hoisted herself up beside him.

He allowed the quiet of the surrounding forest to sink in, the only sound the call and response of a pair of magpies flitting from branch to branch through the ponderosa trees above their heads.

Janelle turned to him. “Where do we start?”

“She's really okay?”

“She's sniffling a little, but it's pretty much gone, like the doctor said.”

“Gregory,” Chuck said, an unintended edge to his voice.

“We're talking about Rosie,” Janelle replied, her chin held high.

The afternoon sun reflected off the tiny jewel affixed to the side of her nose. The gold flecks in her hazel eyes shimmered. Chuck swallowed. God, she was beautiful. The young doctor's ogling of Janelle last night had lacked any semblance of
professionalism—but who could blame him for taking advantage of the opportunity for another look today?

Chuck took Janelle's hand in his. “I'm sure Clarence has texted you by now.”

She shook her head no.

Chuck stifled a groan. He kept it brief—the tunnel-floor collapse, the appearance of the officer at the mine with the photo of Clarence's bloody knife, and the suspicion that the blood was human.

Janelle slid her hand free of Chuck's as he finished: “The cop said they'll follow up. Later today, maybe tomorrow.” He read the look in her eyes. “And no, I'm sure Clarence doesn't want you to say anything to your parents.”

Too late, she looked away.

Chuck continued, “He's refusing to let me get him a lawyer. Says it'll make him look guilty.”

She turned back. “But you disagree.”

“I do. He's got a point, though. There's no actual crime involved. Not yet, anyway.”

“What do we do next?”

Chuck closed his eyes. All he wanted to do next was sleep.

He opened his eyes and looked down the drive toward the Y of the Rockies lodge and conference center. “Parker,” he said.

T
EN

As he drove down the two-track, Chuck called Professor Sartore. In addition to the text he'd sent the professor in the morning, he had emailed Sartore a brief rundown of the previous night's events before setting off for the mine after breakfast.

“What the hell is going on up there?” Sartore barked over the phone. “I've already heard from three different sets of parents.”

“You know college kids,” Chuck said. “They love drama.”

“How much drama are we talking about?”

“More than I'd prefer. But things are settling down.”

“That's not the sense I'm getting. What's this I hear about your brother-in-law's knife?”

Chuck braked to a stop where the driveway reached the gravel road. He filled Sartore in on the appearance of the cop at the mine, picturing the professor's bushy white eyebrows working up and down in consternation as he listened.

“You understand,” Sartore said when Chuck finished, “this is a multi-year contract we've signed with the park service. The plan is to start with Rocky Mountain and expand from there. Yosemite, Grand Canyon, Yellowstone. The opportunities for Fort Lewis and the School of Anthropology—and for you, too, I might add—are significant.”

“I know, professor.”

“And this is the first year,” Sartore said, gaining steam. “The very first summer.”

“Yes, sir.”

“This whole thing with your guy's knife?” Sartore thundered. “And blood? And now you're saying it's human? It's absolutely the last thing we need.” The professor's heavy breaths came over the phone. “Don't you have something else you want to tell me about?”

“I was getting to that.”

“Go right ahead.”

“A small section of the tunnel floor gave way. No one was hurt.”

“The parents who called made it sound like it was the end of the world.”

“College kids,” Chuck reiterated.

“I hired you for a reason, Chuck. I tracked you down after all these years. You're my adult up there, my boots on the ground. There's as much opportunity for you in the summers ahead as there is for the college. But not if things keep going the way they are right now. You've got to keep a lid on things there, understand?”

“Perfectly, sir.” Chuck hoped the professor was thinking the same thing he was: three more days, just three more days.

“Keep me up to speed on this situation with the knife,” Sartore said. “And make damn sure nothing else happens up there, because right now, your ass is on the line.”

“Got it, professor.”

Chuck pulled around the conference center and threw the truck into park, steaming. Who was Professor Sartore to put him on the spot for events beyond his control?

He cut the engine and sat behind the wheel while he calmed himself down. The truth was, he couldn't blame the professor for being so concerned. A lot had happened in the last twenty-four hours, none of it good. If he wanted to work for Sartore again next summer, he had to do as the professor said—keep things quiet from here on out.

Besides, it wasn't as if the professor's outburst came as a surprise. His volcanic temper was legendary on the Fort Lewis campus. Chuck remembered Sartore ripping into students for unsatisfactory work two decades ago. The professor hadn't changed in the years since.

Chuck took a steadying breath and got out of the truck,
heading toward the conference center. The massive log building and the matching lodge next door had been constructed by the Civilian Conservation Corps during the Depression in the 1930s. A banquet room took up most of the first floor of the conference center. Smaller meeting rooms honeycombed the second. Chuck had texted ahead to set up the meeting in Parker's office, which occupied a front corner of the building's third floor.

Chuck climbed the steps to the top story, knocked on Parker's office door, and entered when the resort manager called out for him to come in.

Parker's large office was done up in L.L. Bean chic. A plaid Pendleton blanket lay over the back of a leather sofa against one wall. Lacquered rainbow trout on plaques hung above the couch. A life-size, chain-saw sculpture of a bear hewn from a thick stump of wood filled a corner of the room. The bear stood on its hind legs, paws upraised, mouth open in full roar.

The resort manager stood behind his desk at a wide picture window overlooking the fields and, across the expanse of grass to the south, additional resort buildings, including scattered rental cabins, rows of condominiums, a snack stand, and, off to one side, horse stables.

A few hundred yards farther south, two-story brick buildings lined three blocks of Elkhorn Avenue, comprising Estes Park's compact business district. Beyond, on a hillside facing town, perched the famous, eggshell-white Stanley Hotel with its distinctive red roof.

In his Durango High School days, Parker had been a slight, fidgety student, prone to biting his nails and obsessing over girls, grades, and his bad acne. Chuck's former close school friend hadn't changed much in the intervening years. Parker was still given to quick, nervous gestures and to voicing seemingly every concern that crossed his mind. He was still thin, too,
with a long, aquiline nose, darting eyes, and a close-cropped beard that almost hid his acne scars.

Parker waved Chuck toward one of the horseshoe-shaped club chairs in front of his expansive oak desk. The resort manager wore jeans and a bright blue polo shirt, the Y of the Rockies logo on its breast.

He turned to look out his office window, his fingers drumming the top of a binocular case on the windowsill, before pivoting back to Chuck. “Jim called me.”

“The police officer?”

“He told me about the knife. Said it belongs to your foreman.”

“My crew leader, Clarence.”

“He's your wife's brother, right?”

“That's him. He's worked for me for a couple years.”

“He's not that old, as I recall.”

“Twenty-five. Out of the University of New Mexico School of Anthropology. Says he had nothing to do with it. I believe him.”

“Like you have any choice—your brother-in-law.” Parker dropped into his suede-leather office chair, its arms outlined by brass rivets. “You know I did you a favor, having you stay here this summer, setting you up with your own cabin, letting your students room in Raven House.”

“We're paying you good money, and you know it. Besides, you didn't seem to think this whole thing with the blood was that big a deal last night.”