Watching Eagles Soar (31 page)

She'd come around a wide bend when she spotted the logs piled across the road ahead. Dennis. He didn't want hunters in the wilderness. She shook her head at the futility: he couldn't block all the roads.

Shelly parked with the front bumper up close to the logs and got out. The snow blowing off the trees felt like ice pelting her face, and the wind pressed her uniform against her skin. Shivering, she pulled on the orange vest over her jacket, glad for the extra layer of clothing. Then she put on the orange cap.

A rifle shot cracked the cold air, followed by another and another. She stared at her own rifle locked in the frame inside the Bronco, debating whether to take it. She had her revolver; she was suddenly conscious of the weight of the gun on her hip. But a revolver in the mountains with the far distances . . .

She unclipped the rifle from the frame, grabbed the bag of food, and headed up the road. The ground was hard with the cold and snow; the pine needles crackled under her boots. After about a half mile, the road veered to the right. She turned left into the forest and started climbing the steep slope. The air was filled with the odors of dense undergrowth and fallen, rotted trees. As she ducked past the branches, snow showered down on her. Icy flakes stuck inside her collar and dripped down her back.

She was breathing hard when she reached the top of the slope. Beyond the tree line, the lake lay quiet and gray under the heavy sky. In the clearing, close to the shore, was the cabin, a lopsided wreck of old logs topped with a rusted tin roof. The place probably hadn't changed much since the day the prospector had walked away a hundred years ago.

“Dennis!” Shelly called. She stayed back in the trees, her eyes searching the cabin and the clearing. No sign of anyone.

Hoisting the rifle, she hurried across the clearing to the cabin and pushed open the door. A column of gray light fell over the bunk against the far wall. In the center were a chair and a table of sorts that consisted of a plank on two upright logs. A dark jacket hung off a hook on the log wall, and next to the jacket was a rack of guns. The top space was empty.

Shelly set the bag of food on the plank table and went back outside. Silence, except for the wind in the trees and the distant crack of a rifle. She looked around, half expecting to spot Dennis lurking about somewhere. She could make out the faint mark of her own boot prints in the snow, and, beyond the cabin, leading back into the trees, another set of boot prints, as clear as if Dennis had left her a map.

She fingered the radio on her belt, debating whether to check in with the office, and then decided to wait. Dennis had probably heard her approaching and was hiding nearby. She wouldn't have any trouble finding him.

She started following the boot prints. For the most part, they moved in a straight line through the trees, but here and there, they doubled back, and then shot ahead again, as if Dennis wasn't sure where he wanted to go. Shelly crouched low, not taking her eyes from the trail. It was easy to get disoriented in the mountains; it happened to hunters all the time, and it was the sheriff's deputies who had to go out and find them.

She could see the boot prints running ahead into a meadow. And there were other prints now: small bisected marks of deer hooves. The meadow was a good hunting place, she thought. Close to the lake, plenty of wild grass. And the hunters had a clear shot from the trees and rock outcroppings around the periphery.

Shelly stopped at the edge of the trees. She could hear her heart thudding in her ears. The meadow was almost a perfect circle, quiet and peaceful, layered with ice that glinted like glass. On the opposite side was an outcropping of granite boulders, and rising over the meadow, the brown, snow-washed shoulders of Mount Massive. The meadow was no place for a human being in hunting season; no place for a man who thought he was a deer.

When she was certain there was no movement around the periphery, Shelly started forward, glad for the orange vest and the too-big orange cap that flopped over her ears.

“Dennis! Where are you?” she shouted. The grass was trampled, as if he'd been running, hitting the earth hard, but he was nowhere in sight.

Then she saw the brown hump. She moved closer. Somebody had harvested a deer: a young doe, probably a yearling, stretched on its side, thin legs frozen in the air, brown eyes staring into nothingness. Odd, she thought. Hunters didn't walk away from the kill. They cleaned the carcass and took the meat.

Dennis had found the animal, probably knelt down, judging by the depressions in the grass. And there was something else: the glint of a gray metal cartridge. She scooped it up and rolled it around her palm. A rifle cartridge. She spotted two more cartridges, which she dropped into her vest pocket with the first. Then she started following the tracks across the meadow, glancing about as she walked. Her skin felt prickly; the rifle a dead weight in her hand.

She reached the outcropping on the far side and made her way around the boulders, losing Dennis' trail, and then picking it up again in the snow. There were other boot prints; hard to tell which belonged to Dennis and which belonged to . . . a hunter? As she came out on the far edge of the outcropping, she spotted the blood-spattered boulder.

“What the hell happened up here?” she said out loud, startled by the sound of her voice in the quiet. She clambered back up onto a boulder and peered around the area. A vehicle had been parked in the trees. She could see the depression made by the tires.

A picture started moving in her mind, like an old film, jumpy and black-spotted, cutting off and starting up again. You had to pay attention to make sense out of it, but it was all there, in front of her. Dennis had found the doe in the meadow and had shot at the hunter. The cartridges were from Dennis's rifle. The hunter had been hit, but he'd gotten to his truck and driven away.

And—the film rolling to the climax now—Dennis had gone after him. Which meant he knew where the hunter was headed. Halfmoon campsite, where most of the hunters in the Mount Massive wilderness stayed.

The hunter was wounded, she reminded herself. If he had any sense, he'd drive straight down to town and find a doctor. But she knew hunters; knew the type. He'd want to collect his camping gear. He'd figure he had plenty of time: he had a vehicle and Dennis was on foot. But Dennis knew every inch of the mountain. He'd head straight downslope, and when the hunter drove into the campground, Dennis would be waiting.

Shelly grabbed her radio and pressed the cold plastic against her face. “Deputy Maginnis here,” she shouted into the mouthpiece.

“Where the hell are you?” The sheriff's voice crackled back at her.

She gave her position and told him what she'd learned. “I'm on my way to Halfmoon,” she said.

“Negative. Get back . . .”

Shelly cut off. She stared at the inert plastic in her hand, and then clipped it onto her belt. It clanked next to her handcuffs. Mrs. Lockett's voice sounded in her head, as sharp as if the woman were next to her:
You gotta find him before he kills somebody.

* * *

T
he rifle shot jolted the truck, sending it swerving across the campground. Mickey fought the steering wheel for control and tapped on the brake, finally bringing the truck to a stop next to the fire pit. Another shot crashed through the windshield.

Mickey rammed down the door handle and slid onto the ground, hunkering close to the front tire. He peered around. There was an orange flash in the trees on the north edge of the camp. He spit out the wad of acid that had welled up in his mouth. How the hell did that crazy coot get there so fast?

Mickey gripped his wounded shoulder—it was numb now, and stiff—his eyes following the orange in the trees. Should've gone straight down to Leadville, he told himself. Now he was facing off with a nutcase, nobody else in shouting distance.

Okay. He drew in a long breath; the cold air burned in his chest. He'd faced worse in Nam, gooks in front and gooks in back firing away at him. He'd taken a couple slugs in the gut that made the shoulder graze look like a splinter. He was a survivor.

“Come and get me, you bastard,” he shouted at the orange weaving back and forth.

“Why'd you kill Pretty?”

Hello, looney tunes! The guy's voice was as high-pitched as a girl's, and real shaky, like he was scared shitless. Scared killers. In Nam, they were the most dangerous.

“She ain't dead, you fool,” Mickey shouted. “Look over there on the right. She done followed you.”

A half second was all he needed. The orange jacket hesitated, and then swerved to the right. Mickey reached up, grabbed his rifle out of the front seat, and ran into the trees on the left.

The orange vest had turned around. Mickey saw the rifle come up. Another shot fractured the air between them. A cloud of dust and snow swirled around the front of the truck, and one of the wheels sank into the ground.

“That's right,” Mickey said under his breath. “You think you got me pinned by the truck. Come on, bastard. Come on.”

The coot stepped out of the trees, hesitated, and then started walking at a diagonal from Mickey, the rifle trained on the truck.

Mickey lifted his own rifle and sighted in the orange vest.

* * *

T
he rifle shots thudded through the trees.

Shelly was running full out down the slope, gripping the rifle in both hands, crashing through the branches and scrub brush. She could see Dennis standing in the middle of the campsite, arms raised into the sky, eyes wide with surprise, like those of a deer suddenly aware he was in the hunter's crosshairs.

A rifle lay at his boots.

She stopped running. Her chest felt like it was going to explode. Someone else—a man—was crouched in the clump of trees directly below, a rifle pointed at Dennis.

“Drop the gun!” Shelly shouted. “Sheriff's officers!” She reached down for a dead branch and threw it as hard as she could to the man's left, desperate to make it seem that there were others, that she wasn't alone.

“We got you covered,” she yelled, working her way down the slope.

The man didn't move. His rifle was still on Dennis.

Shelly lifted her own rifle and fired into the air. She scrambled backward with the recoil.

“Set the gun on the ground,” she yelled. She was about fifteen feet behind the man. He knew—she could see it in the drop of his shoulders—that she was close enough to blast a hole in his back. He set the gun down.

“Kick the guns to the side, both of you. Do it now!”

The man stuck out his boot and gave the rifle a shove.

“Harder!”

He shoved the rifle again. It was more than an arm's length away.

Dennis was reaching down. “Don't touch the gun!” she shouted. “Kick it away.”

“Shelly! That you?”

“Do like I say, Dennis, or we're gonna have to shoot you.” Her heart was hammering. There was no
we
.

Dennis prodded the rifle with his boot, then sent it skimming over the ground. “He's a killer, Shelly.”

Shelly walked down and picked up the other hunter's gun. She could see the blood-matted spot on the shoulder of the tan jacket. Stepping back, she shoved the gun into the scrub brush.

“I got a right to defend myself,” the man said. “Guy's crazy. Shot me up at the meadow.”

“Shut up and get down on your stomach,” Shelly said, trying to keep her own fear out of her voice. “Face into the dirt.” She waited while the man flattened himself around the brush and rocks. Who would believe it? she was thinking. She'd run to the campsite to save some hunter, and now it looked like she'd saved Dennis. She had no idea who the hunter was, but she knew Dennis. She had to take a chance on what she knew.

“Get over here, Dennis,” she shouted.

He started walking up the slope, his hands shaking at his sides, as if they'd come unstuck from his arms.

“He killed Pretty.” It sounded like a whimper.

“I know.”

“I was just gonna punish him.”

“You can't take the law into your own hands, Dennis. You know that.”

“I got a license to kill that damn deer.” There was a hard resolve in the hunter's voice. He was dangerous.

“Scoot yourself over to the truck,” Shelly said.

“You alone, ain't you, lady.”

“I got this.” Shelly fired the rifle again. “Do like I say, or the next shot's for you.”

The man started pulling himself forward on one elbow, dragging his wounded shoulder, digging the toes of his boots into the ground. His stomach bumped over the rocks. Finally he lay still next to the truck.

Shelly unhooked the handcuffs from her belt and tossed them to Dennis. “Get a cuff on his left wrist,” she said.

Dennis stared at the cuffs as if they were fireworks about to explode in his face.

“Do it, Dennis.”

He started shuffling toward the truck, and Shelly moved closer to the man stomach-down on the ground. “One wrong move, cowboy,” she said, “and you're a dead man.”

Dennis leaned over and clamped on the handcuff.

Shelly said, “Raise your left arm alongside the truck, cowboy.”

He started to turn on his wounded shoulder, winced, and dropped his forehead on the ground. Slowly, his left arm started scrabbling up the side of the truck. “You're gonna pay for this.” He spit out the words. “I gotta get to the hospital.”

“Okay, Dennis,” Shelly said. “Cuff him to the door handle.”

Dennis looked around, like a deer about to bolt.

“You can do it, Dennis.”

Dennis stood frozen in place.

“Come on.” Shelly motioned to him with the rifle. “I don't wanna have to shoot both of you.”

“For Crissakes,” the hunter shouted. He raised himself up on his knees and snapped the other cuff to the door handle. “You happy now? Get this nutcase's rifle before he kills you and me both.”