“Honestly?” He sniffed and dropped his chin on his chest. “I think it is somebody we do not know. I think it is somebody we have not thought of.”
“A sleeper?”
“Yes. Somebody that is doing this for very strong reasons, something we do not yet understand.”
I nodded. “Do you know Jim Keller very well?”
He looked up, very slowly. “No.”
“Which of the four boys do you consider the most innocent, and whose life’s been messed up by this the most for the least cause?”
“Bryan.” His eyes stayed steady. “The clever thing gets in the way in your line of work, does it not?”
“Sometimes.”
“Is Jim Keller a shooter?”
“He’s supposedly in Nebraska hunting with some friends.”
I watched him turn the wheels. “Would you run off and leave your son here with all these things going on?”
“He never came to the trial.”
The eyes didn’t move. “Neither did I.”
“She wasn’t on trial.”
“The hell she was not.”
I didn’t feel like pursuing that line of answering. “I guess we are back to you. Know your rights?”
“Yes, but it is the wrongs that keep getting me into trouble, Officer.”
We watched the trees swing below as Omar and the department-store helicopter used a variation on the IFR, or I Follow Road, method of navigation to get us to Lost Twin. I thought for a moment and became aware that my stomach had settled. West Tensleep Lake lay at the base of the high valley that continued up the ridge until you got to Cloud Peak, the crowning jewel of the Bighorns. The Indians had named it Cloud Peak because, like most accentuated landmasses, it developed its own weather patterns. It hid from the plains below most of the time, peeking out at us from behind a haze of high-altitude cumulus.
Omar was rounding off the edges to get the most out of his three-hundred-mile travel range. We had been up for the better part of an hour and, through the front glass of the passenger side of the cockpit, I could make out a few cabins that had been built before the government had acquisitioned the land. We were now technically in Big Horn County, but the less said about that the better. By the time we followed Middle Tensleep Creek below Mather Peak we would be back in Absaroka County and my proper jurisdiction. You could feel the lift and roll as the chopper followed the creek toward Mirror Lake and continued up the small valley to our final destination, the Lost Twin. They were both sizable. I noticed Omar’s hand waving in the cockpit. I picked up the headset and adjusted the microphone. “Yep?”
“You’ve got a call on the single band; I’ll patch it through.”
A moment of static, and Ruby’s voice was there in my ear. “Walt, the Game and Fish called. They said there wasn’t anyone signed in at the trailhead to go to Lost Twin, but they said they’ve got a black Mazda Navajo with the plates Tuff-1 at the Tensleep parking lot.”
“That part’s good news. Anything else?”
“Affirmative.”
“Affirmative? Hey, you really are getting the hang of this.”
“Walt, I was going back over the duty roster so that I could write the Roundup for the week. There was a complaint phoned in yesterday morning that sounds suspicious.”
“What’s that?”
“Tracy Roberts, Kent’s sister called; they’ve got that place down on Mesa road, on 115? Well, she and her dad were out feeding cows yesterday morning when the old man saw a porcupine that’d been doing some damage, so he makes her stop so he can shoot it.”
“On the county road?”
“I know, she wasn’t sure if she should call in, but she was angry. She says that somebody came roaring down the road and almost hit the old man.” I waited. “She said it was a green pickup, an old one.” I looked over at Henry, who continued to look out the window at the rushing scenery.
“What time?”
“A little after dawn.” I continued to look at my friend who had just moved above a six. “Walt, do you copy that?”
“Yep, they get a look at the driver?”
“No.”
Radio silence for a few moments. “Roger that. Over and out.”
I pulled the headphone and rested it on my lap and studied him. After a moment he turned. “Something?”
I nodded slowly. “Yep.” I explained about the black Mazda and the lack of sign-in sheet but neglected to mention the sighting of a green truck very much like his.
He smiled. “Lost Twin, how could it be anything else?”
We continued on as I tried to harness the thoughts that made the helicopter seem as if it were standing still. I looked out the side window and watched. I felt the blood in my body shift forward as Omar slowed the helicopter from 160 to nothing and poised over the small ridge that separated the two lakes. I could easily make out the pattern the rotors made on the surface of the water, spiraling dimples that rotated outward to feathering waves that agitated the surrounding shores. Without my asking, Omar began a slow, clockwise rotation to give us the maximum view. Henry went to the door on the other side as I hunched against the Plexiglas window and searched the area for any signs of human activity below.
The lakes are situated at the bottom of the Mather Peak Ridge that touches just over twelve thousand feet. Only through the valley in which we had made our approach could you make any kind of retreat and that was due northwest, the exact direction from which the storm was approaching. So far there were no real signs of the front, and I was beginning to think that the skin-of-our-teeth thing wasn’t going to be an issue when my attention was drawn to the higher peaks to the west. It was still coming; it had just paused for a moment to gather its breath to make the run up the west slope of the Bighorns. The surrounding area was going to be swept into a frozen maelstrom a little before dark. I had every intention of being out of there by then but, just in case, there were two six-thousand-cubic-inch packs lying on the floor between Henry and me. They had extra clothes, food, a tent, two sleeping bags, and enough emergency supplies to keep us going for a little less than a week. Every time I looked at the oncoming clouds, I nudged my boot up against the packs and felt better.
“Hey.” It figured Henry would spot something first. I turned and looked into the cockpit; Omar had seen something too and pointed to an area in a small gully hidden among the trees directly beside the farthest lake. His arm was decorated with three turquoise bracelets. Style. The nose of the helicopter dipped as we accelerated to the area and hovered just above the treetops. There was a small, green tent there, a little two-person job, with a rain fly staked to the ground. It was holding its own against the pounding of the Bell.
I reached up and tapped Omar on the shoulder. He nudged one of the ear cups forward and inclined his head toward me. “This thing got a PA?” He nodded and flipped the appropriate switches on the overhead console and motioned for me to pick up my headset and use the microphone. The helicopter had little bud vases, how could it not have an announcing system? I cleared my throat and listened to it echo from the surrounding mountainsides. I glanced up, as both Omar and Henry looked at me. “Shit.” This too echoed across the peaks.
Henry shook his head. “You think he cannot hear the helicopter?”
I frowned at him and continued. “George Esper?” The volume gave me more of a sense of authority, so I continued. “This is Sheriff Walt Longmire of Absaroka County. If you are down there, would you please reveal yourself to us?” We watched closely as nothing happened, and the only thing I could think of was how difficult it was going to be to find his body in a snowstorm. We continued to scan the area, but nothing was moving down there except with the insistence of the helicopter’s downdraft. I tapped Omar on the shoulder again, but he pointed to the headset and flipped the switches on the overhead. “You see any place you could set down?”