41
“What is that out there in that field?” Mitchell grumbled. “An elk? It’s almost gettin’ too dark to see.”
Cody looked up and squinted. Ahead of them, to the left of the trail in a moon-splashed clearing, was a horizontal dark form elevated above the grass. The form had been still as they approached but now it moved a few feet to the right. The figure was hard to make out because it was dark against a green-black wall of pine trees.
“Damn if it isn’t another stray horse,” Mitchell said. The string of docile horses was behind him. “But it looks like there’s something on it.”
Cody held his satellite phone up to his ear and was talking with Edna at dispatch in Helena. He was glad she was on duty and he’d ignored her pleas to tell her where he was and what had happened since she’d seen him last. When she took a breath, he said, “Edna, send a car up to Larry’s house in Marysville. I was talking to him ten minutes ago and I got cut off. I think something happened to him.”
She repeated, “Something happened to him? What?”
“I don’t know. But I’ve called back four times since and he won’t pick up. Edna, send whoever you can as fast as you can and warn them there may be someone else in Larry’s house. Tell them to nail the guy and hold him. Go!”
“Cody-”
“Go!” Cody barked, and punched off.
Mitchell and Cody rode up to the stray horse. Mitchell said, “Be calm, Hoyt. Don’t rush it or charge it or you’ll make it panic and run away. Don’t bark out Go! anymore.”
Cody hung slightly back and let Mitchell walk his gelding to the horse.
There was something on its back. Cody’s first thought was it was a roll of carpet or a set of slim panniers the way it hung over on both sides of the horse. He could see the horse didn’t have a halter or bridle.
“Easy now,” Mitchell cooed to the horse.
It was a bay and it took a few unsteady steps forward as Mitchell approached. Cody said, “He’s lame.”
“Yup,” Mitchell said, slipping off his mount and walking patiently toward the bay. With a movement as quick as it was gentle, he slipped a rope over the bay’s neck to keep it in place. The horse seemed docile but Cody could see white on the edges of its eyes. It wouldn’t take much to set it off.
“Oh, no,” Mitchell said with what sounded like genuine sadness. “We’ve got a woman this time.”
With that, he turned the bay and walked it a few steps into the moonlight.
Her body was draped over the back of the horse facedown. Long brown hair hung limply, obscuring her face and ears. Her hands had been tied under the belly of the bay to her boots to keep the body secure.
Cody gritted his teeth, and said, “Shit.”
“Look at this,” Mitchell said, pointing to a thin gash on the bay’s haunch that glistened with fresh blood. “They tied the body on and gave the horse a prod to get it running away.”
Mitchell looked up. “Do you know who she is?”
“I think so.”
“Want to make sure?”
Cody tried to swallow, but couldn’t. He nodded.
Mitchell gently grasped her hair with one hand and cupped her chin in the other and lifted her face up into the light.
Cody could see the gaping wound across her throat and he tasted bile in his mouth.
“Her name was Dakota Hill,” Cody said, his voice dry. “And we’re going to go find who killed her before there’s no one left.”
They approached the camp cautiously, even though Cody’s inclination was to storm it like Vikings. He could see a fire going, but only four people around it. Justin wasn’t one of them. Rachel Mina and Jed were gone as well.
There were four adults huddling around the fire. The firelight on their faces made them look gaunt and shell-shocked.
Mitchell had agreed to stay back in the trees to cover him with his hunting rifle as Cody walked his horse up. He kept looking for others in the camp. After all, there were nine tents pitched neatly in a meadow to the north of the camp. No one seemed to be in them.
Cody had his rifle out and across the pommel as he rode up. He was locked and loaded. He’d checked his.40 to make sure there was one in the chamber with a full twelve-rounds in the magazine.
Before they even knew he was there, before anyone looked up to see a strange rider approaching from the dark, Cody could feel a palpable sense of doom from the people sitting around the fire. Like they’d given in, defeated.
He recognized Walt immediately. His Richness sat there with his hands hung between his knees, his head down. The skeletal woman must be Donna Glode. The younger, slim man who looked out of place had to be James Knox. And the nervous man, the one who sat by the others but didn’t seem to be with them, must be Ted Sullivan.
Cody said, “Everybody stay where they are, I’m a cop.”
Walt said, “Cody? Is that you?”
“Yeah, Walt. Where the hell is my son?”
Walt gathered himself to his feet and swallowed. “He’s gone, Cody. I don’t know where.”
“Jesus,” Cody hissed, “what do you mean you don’t know?”
Donna Glode looked up from the fire. “Four more horses are missing. We think Justin is with the two Sullivan girls and Rachel Mina. They sneaked out of here without a word to anyone.”
Cody turned to Ted Sullivan: “Where are your girls?”
“I don’t know,” Sullivan said, standing with closed fists, “but I want to find them. I’m coming with you.”
Cody snorted. “Can you ride?”
“Not really.”
“Cody,” Mitchell said as he approached from the shadows, “I hate to break it to you like this, but you can’t ride worth a damn either.”
Cody said to Mitchell, “You’ll stay here with these three?”
Mitchell nodded.
Cody said to Walt, “Do you want to come, too?”
Walt sighed and looked away. “I’ll stay,” he said softly.
Cody shook his head, disgusted. To Ted Sullivan, Cody said, “Come on, then.”
42
Gracie noticed how Rachel Mina’s shoulders tensed as she spurred her horse from the trail up into the open. Then Strawberry nickered and a horse up ahead nickered back. Rachel didn’t turn around in her saddle but Gracie saw the woman’s hand move back and untie the string bow on the top of the pack she’d retrieved from her tent.
Gracie was beside herself. She had nothing but speculation to go on but with every foot they rode higher up the trail she became more convinced that everything they’d believed an hour before back at Camp Two was a fantasy. She hurt deeply and wanted to cry out for her dad and for herself.
But there was little she could do. Rachel rode ahead on the trail and both Danielle and Justin were behind Gracie. The steep wall of the mountain hemmed her in on her right and the ground dropped off to the left. She couldn’t turn and run, or even turn to talk to her sister to convey her fears. It was getting dark and cold. She had no weapon.
Rachel’s horse stepped up and over a solid lip of granite and Gracie could hear hoofbeats clatter on solid rock. In a moment Strawberry was on top as well. Danielle and Justin were right behind her.
Rachel had reined to a stop next to a riderless horse tied to the trunk of a tree. She turned in her saddle and whispered, “I’m going to protect you. Do you understand?”
Justin said, “Protect us? All I see is Jed’s horse.”
Rachel ignored him. “Everybody get off. We’re going to walk the rest of the way. I need you all to keep completely silent, and I mean that.”
Gracie looked to the others. Danielle looked miffed. She hated to be told what to do, especially if it involved silence. Justin was confused, and he scowled at the older woman.