Twisted (12 page)

“Don’t I know that?” Mike nodded thoughtfully.

“Well, he’s used to tradin’ sex for what he wants. He’s also always on the defensive, because he’s always been seen as a sex object. He doesn’t know how to act around people who haven’t been in his situation.”

“I just had an idea. I’m gonna call my father when we get back from skiin’.” I just looked at Mike. I had no idea where that came from.

“Mike, that’s a great idea!” Sandy hugged him.

“I don’t mean to seem dense here, but just what in the hell are you two talkin’ about?”

“Jeffy, you remember tellin’ me about PFLAG? Well, he’s a counselor in PFLAG and real active. Maybe he can never make up for what he did to me, but he sure as hell can show he’s sincere by helpin’ someone else.”

“You’re a good man, buddy.”

“Okay you two, go and get your ski gear on. I don’t wanna see this turn into a remake of
Brokeback Mountain
.” I heard Maria laugh from the kitchen.

We had decided to drive up to where the road through the North Cascades was closed for the winter, and ski past that. Although we were the only ones parked at the end now, obviously many people had had the same idea over the last week or so. There were cross-country ski tracks and snow machine tracks. It looked like a few folks had been through on snow shoes too. We decided to take off on a small side trail that paralleled the river, or what little of it there was this close to the source. It was obvious a snow machine had been through here earlier, but the trail was old and covered in new snow. The day was sunny and clear, but cold.

“How ya doin’, Jason?” He was gamely trying to keep up.

“This is a lot of work.”

“That it is, but it’s fun too. It’s really beautiful out here in the winter, don’t ya think?”

“I guess so. You really get into all this outdoors shit, don’t you?”

“Yeah, I do, so does Mike.” Mike had skied on ahead a bit. Jason was actually doing pretty well, but he was new at it and hadn’t gotten the hang of efficiently using forward momentum to keep himself going. Mike and I were taking turns waiting for him.

“I’m ruining it for you guys, aren’t I?”

“Why in the hell would you think that?”

“One of you always has to wait for me.”

“Yeah, and neither one of us minds it. Just a few weeks ago, I was waitin’ on Mike. Jason, if we thought you would ruin it or if we didn’t want you here, you wouldn’t be here.” I could see a bit of a slope ahead. Mike was waiting at the bottom.

“C’mon Jason, let’s see how fast we can go down the hill!” I began skiing as fast as I could and continued to ski fast about a third of the way down the slope. I’d gotten quite a good speed up, and zoomed past Mike before stopping and turning around to ski back to him. Jason was on his way down the hill. He was going fairly quickly, and I noticed him trying to slow down. He overdid a snowplow and crossed his ski tips. He made a spectacular tumble.

Mike yelled out, “You okay there, Jason?”

“Yeah, I just can’t get up!” He was trying to pull himself upright, but kept falling. Mike and I skied over and helped him up.

“I’ll never get the hang of this shit.”

“Relax, Jason. You’re doin’ pretty well. Ya gotta expect you’re gonna fall quite a few times learnin’.”

“Yeah, it’s all part of the fun. I still fall quite a bit, right Jeffy?”

“Yep, and that is part of the fun. Let’s keep goin’ down this path. We have a beautiful view of the mountains up in front, and comin’ back we should have a good view of the valley.”

“Sounds good to me.” Mike skied over and gave me a quick kiss.

“You guys look like two trolls doin’ that. You got ice all over your beards.” Neither of us bothered to answer. We skied on ahead. The river was frozen and had formed some beautiful ice piles as it had slowly gotten colder. The trees were all covered in snow, and many of the rocks alongside the river were draped in icicles. It was a beautiful sight. After about half an hour, Mike and I stopped and waited for Jason. I had a thermos of Irish coffee in my day pack, and he and I shared it.

“I’m glad you thought of bringin’ this, Jeffy. It hits the spot. It seems the minute I stop skiin’ I start gettin’ cold.”

“Yeah, ya work up such a sweat your clothes get soaked. When you stop exercisin’, ya get cold. I reckon that when Jason gets here, we probably should let him rest a bit and then head back.”

“Okay.” Jason actually caught up to us much quicker than I thought he would.

“You’re gettin’ pretty good on the skis, a lot better than me when I started.” I nodded. Mike was right.

“You seem to have it down pretty well, Jason.” He was drinking some hot chocolate out of his own thermos.

“What’s that down there?” He pointed off toward the river. There was a large group of ravens on something.

“It might be a dead deer or somethin’ like that. It looks like they found some food.”

Jason started skiing toward the group of birds. “I’ll go see what it is!” As Jason got closer, the ravens left whatever it was they’d been feeding on. They flew to the nearest trees, waiting to reclaim their meal.

“Jeff! Mike!” Jason’s voice had a note of panic. I pushed my poles in and began to ski toward him. I could hear Mike right behind me. As we got closer, I could smell something dead, but faintly. The cold temperatures had probably kept whatever died preserved. Jason had stepped away from the carcass and was vomiting. I guess the kid had never seen a dead deer or road kill or anything. I was just about to start teasing him about his weak city boy stomach when I saw what the ravens had been feeding on. It stopped me in my tracks.

“Jason, back away and try to stay in the tracks you made when you skied up, okay?” He did as I asked. The ravens hadn’t been feeding on a dead deer. They were feeding on a dead man. From what I could see, he was naked. I realized I was assuming it was a man, but I really couldn’t tell. The hair was short, but he’d been horribly mutilated. I wasn’t sure how much was from animals, and how much from other causes. It looked as if he’d been gutted. I was about twenty feet away. It looked like his hands were behind his back, and his feet were tied together. Empty eye sockets stared up at the sky. His neck was horribly mangled. I reckoned that had to be due to animals. I pulled off my day pack and reached for my cell phone. No reception.

“We’re gonna have to ski back up to the road to call the sheriff.” Mike tried his phone and had the same experience. Wordlessly, we turned and began to ski back. On the way back, what he lacked in skill, Jason made up in sheer determination. He was silent and still looked kinda green. I’d be lying to say I wasn’t freaked out, and Mike was quiet and had an upset look in his eyes. It seemed to take much longer to get back to the truck than it did on our way in. The forest, which had seemed so beautiful on our way in, seemed menacing and filled with shadows on the way out. Once we were back to the truck, I was able to get a signal and got ahold of Sheriff Johnston, Sandy’s father. He said he’d be right on his way with a couple of deputies and some snow machines.

It took almost an hour for the sheriff and the deputies to get to the end of the road where we were parked. Sheriff Johnston and one deputy showed up with four snow machines in tow.

“You know how to drive one of these things don’t you, Jeff?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What about you, Mike?”

“I do too, sir.”

“Good, you boys take the two extra machines, and we’ll follow you. Can one of you take Jason?” Jason immediately ran over by me. Prior to heading back to where the body was, the sheriff took some measurements and pictures of the old snow machine tracks. I reckon he felt that was how the body got in there. Finally we were able to get on the snow machines and head to the body. I was getting cold standing around. Although we were dressed for the outdoors, you tend to dress a lot lighter for cross-country skiing than you do for sitting on a snow machine. While skiing, you’re keeping yourself warm, while riding about thirty-five miles an hour just sitting, you’re cooling yourself down. It took only a few minutes to get there. Mike, Jason, and I huddled off by the snow machines while the sheriff and the deputy photographed the body and the scene and went around looking for anything that might have been left behind. We stood there for about an hour, getting progressively colder. Finally Sheriff Johnston came up to us.

“I’m gonna have to drop by in a bit and take your statements. If I let you go back home now, you have to promise me not to talk about this among yourselves. I want to hear your individual memories, not influenced by each other. Also, please don’t mention it to anyone else right now, okay?”

“Yes sir. I just want to get home and get warm.”

“You three look pretty near froze. Take the snow machines. Just put ’em back on the trailer when you get up to the road.” We all chorused thanks to the sheriff and wasted no time on getting on the snow machines and back to the road. We got ’em on the trailer and lashed in pretty quickly. We jumped in my truck, which I’d had Jason turn on and warm up. It was nice and toasty when Mike and I got in. We got home pretty quick. Mike and I were gonna take a dip in the hot tub, and Jason said he wanted to stand under hot water in the shower in the bunkhouse for an hour. Mike and I rushed upstairs to get undressed and rinsed off in the shower. We headed downstairs to the hot tub. When we had to walk through the living room, we got all sorts of catcalls from Sandy, Maria, and Renee, due to the brief Speedos Mike had bought us.

“It was Mike’s idea, not mine.”

“Mike, amigo, Jeff really has rubbed off on you. You know you hide more walking around in your underwear.” José was teasing Mike.

“José, you’re just jealous you don’t have the body that Jeffy and I do.”

“Even if I did, amigo, I would not feel comfortable parading it around.”

“So are you two going to do your
Brokeback Mountain
thing, dressed like that, for us?” Leave it to Renee. If Mike and I show any affection, Sandy always says she feels as if she’s walked onto the set of
Brokeback Mountain
.

“No, Renee, but I’ll tell you where Mike bought these so you can get a pair for Josh.” Josh gave me a horrified look.

“No way in hell am I gonna run around in a swimsuit that skimpy.” We ducked out into the back and got into the hot tub. It felt great. Both of us were half frozen. Mike scooted over closer to me. I put my arm around his shoulders, and he snuggled into me.

“What’s up, buddy?”

“I just feel weird, stumblin’ on that poor guy. Did you see the condition he was in?”

“Yeah, it was hard not to. You’ve had a rough go of it for the last few days, haven’t ya?” Sheriff Johnston had asked us not to talk about it, so I steered Mike away from the subject.

“That’s kind of an understatement. I dunno why I let him get me so riled.” Mike was speaking about his father, now.

“I feel for ya, buddy. I can’t pretend to understand everythin’ you’re goin’ through, but I know it must be hell.” He let out a deep sigh.

“It just kind of came over me, when we were skiin’ this mornin’, before we found the body, that if I keep lettin’ him get on my nerves and make me feel so bad about myself, I’m givin’ him too much power. Right here is what’s important, you, the ranch, our friends, the dudes. Me gettin’ all upset at you and our friends is just reactin’ in the same manner as he reacted to me. If he’s changed, great, then time will tell. If over time I see that, then maybe I can let him into my life again.”

“You still plannin’ on callin’ him about Jason?”

“Yeah, if he can help, great. Jason has had it a lot harder than I did. I never sold myself. Apparently my old man’s had some experience, dealin’ with troubled kids like Jason.”

The hot water was sending up clouds of steam. It was getting cloudy and looked as if we were gonna have a storm this evening. The first dudes were coming tomorrow, a single guy and a gay couple. They were both staying a week. I heard the back door open and shut. Mike and I moved over to the edge of the hot tub, but made no move to get out. I felt like I was still cold inside.

“Here they are, Dad.” I saw Sandy behind the sheriff. Curiosity was written all over her face, but she didn’t ask anything.

“Thanks, hon.”

“Hey, boys. So who wants to be interviewed first?”

“How about I go get dressed, and you stay here and keep gettin’ warm while you talk to the sheriff, Jeffy?” With that Mike jumped outta the hot tub and wrapped his towel around himself. He headed inside pretty quick. It was only about twenty-five degrees.

“So tell me what happened, son.”

“Well, sir, Mike, Jason, and I decided to ski past the close of the road. There had been quite a few skiers, folks on snowshoes, and snow machines that had gone up the road. There was a side trail by the river, and it looked like only one snow machine had gone down there, and a while ago. The trail was mostly covered by new snow. We skied a coupla miles in, and Jason wanted to go ahead. Today was his first time skiin’, and I think he wanted to prove he could do it. Well, he got several hundred yards ahead of us, and he started yellin’ for us. We took after him like a couple of cats with their tails on fire. When we got to the bottom of that big hill, Jason was off to the side, sick to his stomach. There were a bunch of ravens in the trees, that had flown up when he went down there. I thought it mighta been a dead deer. When we got closer, I saw it wasn’t a deer. I told Jason to move back the way he came, steppin’ out on his tracks. If there was anythin’ there to help you figure out what happened, he didn’t need to step on it.”

“Much obliged, Jeff.”

I nodded back at the sheriff. “I thought it was a guy, but I wasn’t too certain. He’d been pretty badly mutilated. I didn’t think it was a woman since the hips and legs didn’t look right. Whoever it was, looked like they’d been gutted, and their neck was pretty slashed up. You saw all the ravens, and I reckon other animals had gotten to the body.”

“They had. You were right about it being a guy. Part of the condition of the body was due to animals, but he’d been emasculated, and his head had been taken off and then placed where it would be if still attached. Only reason that it didn’t get carried away by animals is that it was frozen to the spot. We’ll have to wait for the report from the coroner to see what he can tell us. I’d appreciate your not sayin’ anything about what I told you about the condition of the body. I’m pretty sure you’re gonna hear all sorts of rumors in the next week or so, and I wanted you to know what happened rather than fuel more speculation. If you could just tell folks you really couldn’t see much, other than it was a human body, that would be great.”