Mitchell shrugged.
“Do you have a GPS?” Cody asked. “Mine got burned up in the fire. I’d like to get the exact coordinates here so we can let the rangers know to come get the body.”
Mitchell said, “I know the exact location of Camp One. I’ll tell ’em.”
“There may be more forensic evidence around here,” Cody said, looking up toward where the tents were pitched on the grassy shelf. “A crime-scene crew could find something if they got here before too long. Maybe where the killing took place, or footprints, or pieces of parachute cord. Or blood. It’s not unusual to find the blood of the killer at the scene of a knifing. It’s amazing how often the assailant cuts himself with his own knife during a struggle. Lots of times they don’t even know it until later.”
“Yeah,” Mitchell said with a slow smile building, “I watch them shows on television. The CSI folks would get here and we’d know the whole story and catch the bad guy in forty-eight minutes flat.”
“It doesn’t work like that,” Cody said.
“And it sure as hell wouldn’t work here,” Mitchell said. “I promise you that. It’ll likely rain this afternoon and wash evidence away, or the wolves will come back and clean things up. Nothing works here like normal, like I told you earlier.”
Cody sat down heavily on a rock next to Mitchell.
He said, “I’ve never been on a crime scene before when it was just me. Usually we’ve got evidence techs and forensic guys on the way, not to mention all my own equipment. I can’t even communicate with anyone except you. I feel so goddamned helpless.”
“So maybe we better get on our horses and find the rest of ’em,” Mitchell said. “That’s the only way we’re going to know what’s happened here.”
“Yeah. So you said earlier we have to leave the body?”
Mitchell nodded. “We ain’t takin’ it with us, that’s for sure.”
“Then what do we do with it? Sink it back into the lake? Bury it?”
“Wolves’ll come back,” Mitchell said, shaking his head. “There won’t be nothin’ left. There’s only one thing we can do.”
Cody said, “Hang it up?”
“I know where the food pole is,” Mitchell said, struggling to his feet, his back popping. “A hundred yards up the mountain away from the camp. Unless Jed moved it. We can run the body up the pole until the rangers get here.”
“Man.”
“Unless you’ve got a better idea.”
“I wish I did.”
It wasn’t easy. Cody got kicked in the face with Glode’s boots as the body was pulled up into the air. Mitchell had dallied the rope around his saddle horn and walked his horse toward the north until the body was raised twenty feet into the air. Cody looked up. Glode’s arms were splayed straight out to the sides from the rope looped under his arms. His head was cocked to the side and his legs hung straight down. The body turned slowly as they tied the rope off after wrapping it around the sap-heavy trunk of a lodgepole pine.
“Birds’ll get at it,” Mitchell said, “but there isn’t much we can do about that. This is about as dignified as we can get for now.”
Mitchell tied the rope off. “Things have changed around here in more ways than one,” he said, as much to himself as to Cody. “If anything, they’ve gotten a hell of a lot wilder and more dangerous than they used to be. The grizzly bear population is way up, and there’s nothing going to keep it down. And the reintroduction of wolves has changed the whole ecosystem. I’ve heard old-timers compare this wolf deal to introducing street gangs back into inner cities where the gangs had long since been wiped out. I’m not sure I’d go that far,” Mitchell said, “but it sure has changed things. There are a hell of a lot more critters around that can eat us than there used to be.”
“Great,” Cody said.
As they rode away from Camp One the trail was instantly recognizable. It was churned up by the hooves of multiple horses and mules.
“One thing I’m sure you noticed, being the detective and all,” Mitchell said over his shoulder as he rode, “was that rock holding the body underwater.”
Puzzled, Cody said, “What about the rock?”
“I guess I mean the knots on it.”
“What about the knots?” Cody asked, annoyed.
“You didn’t recognize the style of knots used to secure that rock to the line?”
Cody sighed. “I’m getting tired of being strung along here.”
“Diamond hitches,” Mitchell said. “Damned near perfect ones. Not the easiest thing to tie in the world, but probably the best damned knot in an outfitter’s arsenal.”
Cody felt his face go slack.
“Think about it,” Mitchell said again.
Cody reached back into his saddlebag as he rode and found the satellite phone. After staring at it in his hand for a few minutes, he powered it on.
It took two minutes to boot up, find the satellite, and come back with full reception.
He had five messages. All from Larry.
27
As Gracie and Dakota topped the hill they found the others. Jed had ridden ahead and gathered everyone off to the side of the trail and they sat their horses and looked back at the stragglers.
Dakota said, “Oops, looks like we let them get too far ahead of us.”
“Are you in trouble?”
“Naw, I can handle it.”
Gracie saw where Jed had tied a red bandana on a sapling to indicate to D’Amato and Russell-and possibly Tristan Glode and Wilson-where to turn off.
Jed said to Dakota, “You need to keep the hell up.”
Dakota lied, “Gracie was having a little trouble with Strawberry. We got it all worked out.”
Jed narrowed his eyes and looked from Dakota to Gracie and back. Gracie could tell he wasn’t sure he was buying the explanation.
Her dad rode over to her. “Everything okay, honey?”
“Fine,” Gracie said.
He rode close alongside and reached out and touched her cheek. “I’m sorry about earlier.”
“Me too,” she said.
She could see the relief in his face. He said, “We still do need to talk.”
“I know.”
“Danielle, too. We all need to talk. I thought it would be easier on this trip but we’re constantly with everyone else.”
Gracie nodded, and he touched her again and walked his horse back to his place in line.
She said, “Dad?”
When he turned, his face filled with concern, she said, “Danielle and I talked with her. She seems nice.”
He beamed, and said, “She is.”
“Okay,” Jed barked, gesturing toward a thick copse of trees at the edge of the meadow, “this is where the trail breaks off. And if everyone will keep in line and follow me and not wander too far behind,” he glared at Dakota, “we should all be okay.”
And with that he turned his horse and gathered his mules and set off across the meadow. To Gracie, it didn’t even look like a trail.
Where are we going?
She turned and looked over her shoulder at Dakota. Dakota shrugged and extended her arms palms up in a who knows? gesture.
28
Cody wanted to hurt someone, break something, unleash holy hell. He’d chewed up two packages of Stride gum and drained his Nalgene bottle, pretending the warm plastic-tasting water was 100-proof alcohol, but it wasn’t. His cravings for nicotine and booze pulled at him from the inside like talons and he thought, One cold beer, one cigarette, that’s all I fucking ask. That, and my son.