In Corey’s office they plotted out a course while Montgomery wondered if McFarland had reached the superintendent for a decision on closing the Fawn Pass trail. A short-wave scanner on a table by the wall crackled with walkie-talkie chatter among rangers spread throughout the Park. There were too many speeders and that wasn’t going to be tolerated during Labor Day weekend. A teenager who had stepped into the edge of a hot spring and scalded his foot was rushed to the emergency clinic at Lake Lodge. They already had two DUI arrests, one for possession. A collision involving three vehicles reported near the Tetons exit. No serious injuries.
Montgomery paid little attention to the scanner. He’d been thinking it through most of the night, how to say what he should’ve said long before now. But he knew that even mentioning Greta McFarland’s name would set him off.
“I’ve got something to level with you, Jack.”
Corey spoke while staying focused on the map. “We’re always straight with each other.”
“When you were at Indian Creek with the Scouts, McFarland called me into her office.”
Corey looked up with a scowl.
“She was pushing on me, Jack.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“She expressed doubts about you being in charge.”
Corey slowly leaned back in his chair. “Me? In charge of what? The Park?”
“No… the hunt for the hybrid.”
“That asshole is trying to go around everybody in the chain. What did you tell her?”
“I said that I wanted no part of going behind your back. If anybody could handle this, it’s you. I told her to relax. We’d take care of it.”
Corey folded his hands behind his head and smiled. “Did you know she’s screwing the superintendent?”
Montgomery didn’t want to go there or anywhere close. “Never heard that one.”
“The beautiful Black Princess fucking her old white married boss. How do you think she got the job in the first place? The bitch has been aiming for me ever since she arrived.”
Montgomery pretended to be searching the map. How easy it was for McFarland to push Corey’s buttons. A hatred so utterly deep it always shuts down his mind. On the other hand, Corey hated his ex as much as McFarland. Truth was, the chief park ranger hated many people while holding a strong dislike for most. Maybe the real problem was that Corey hated himself above everyone else.
Through the static on the shortwave they both heard the same word: llama.
Corey nudged him to go turn up the volume. A ranger was reporting to the dispatcher that he’d stopped to question a driver hauling a horse trailer with a llama inside. Corey grabbed for the phone and called Comm Central, ordering the clerk to have the ranger call him.
In less than thirty seconds the phone rang and Corey snatched the receiver. “What were their names?… The ones with the llama, dammit… Did he have a permit?… What did they say they were doing?… Where?… Not necessary… Thanks.”
Corey hung up then rose out of his seat and barked. “Let’s get to the airport!”
“There’s no light craft flying now, Jack.”
Corey seized Montgomery’s wrist and buried his fingernails into his flesh until it turned white. He pronounced each word with a military cadence as he spoke. “Radio to Gardiner. Tell them to get a chopper ready.”
While Montgomery prepared for the trip, Corey dashed home. He entered the side door and brushed past the kitchen table, where a large brown envelope lay unopened with a return address of the Livingston law offices of Higgins, Markley, and Jones. He charged up the stairs, two steps at a time, yanked off his clothes in the bedroom, and pulled another uniform wrapped in plastic out of the closet. It was freshly starched and pressed. Extra starch. He put on the tan shirt with the NPS logo and buttoned it up, then sat on the bed with his trousers and rubbed his forefinger and thumb along the crease. He walked back to the closet and scanned the floor. Where were his goddamn hiking boots?
He rushed to the garage and searched the shelves, looking among the tools and rags on top of and under the workbench. He knocked over a used can of paint and the lid fell off. Black enamel spread like lava over the floor. At the garage door he spotted the boots and kicked them up against the wall before picking them up. When he returned to the bedroom, he pulled on each boot, tying the leather laces with a double-knot. There would be a lot of hiking. In the back corner of the closet, he lugged out his scoped .30/.30, then opened the bottom dresser drawer and grabbed a box of shells, stuffing a handful into each pocket.
What if one of them had a weapon? People were known to shoot rangers.
Like what happened to Willie Petruski with Idaho Fish and Wildlife three years before. Willie tried to arrest two hunters who were stalking elk a week before the season opened. They shot Willie through the heart. Corey attended the funeral, along with over fifty rangers from all over the West. Only time in his life he ever cried.
Next to the box of ammo was a souvenir from his tour of duty in Nam, a Ka-Bar fighting knife encased in a sheath with an emblem of the US Marine Corps. He gripped the knife and twisted it about to study its features. Parkerized finish, with a razor edge. He dragged the blade along a forefinger, just delicately enough to draw blood.
In front of the full-length mirror, he carefully positioned his ranger hat. Bringing both hands up, he readjusted it, tilting it a half an inch to the right, a finger’s width forward. He gazed at his image.
What had happened to the dream? Where did it all begin to fall apart?
It didn’t matter. What mattered was respect. People had to learn that you can’t go around making fools of others, least of all making a fool of him. Some people just didn’t understand that simple moral principle. He jerked back his knee and with a swift kick shattered the mirror. Slivers of glass sprayed out over the bedroom carpet. Too much time had been wasted; had to get back to the airport.
There was urgent work to do for the Park.
FORTY-SIX
Montgomery fingered his mustache as he sat at the controls of a blue and white Bell 206 Jet Ranger. While the engine was warming he studied the sky and checked his watch one more time.
He held licenses to fly a variety of light fixed-wing aircraft as well as the smaller choppers. All of it was thanks to skills learned in the US Army.
But he had now grown sick of it all. Babysitting his boss to make sure he met his obligations was taking a toll—plus a daily Valium and forty milligrams of Prilosec. The glove box in his truck held a bottle of a hundred Tums but less than a dozen were left. The worst part of the job was covering for a guy whose biggest problem was fanatical hatred for so many he imagined were trying to do him in. McFarland was catching on and that was going to lead to nothing good.
When Corey sauntered toward the helipad Montgomery couldn’t believe what he saw—a rifle strapped over Corey’s shoulder. No ranger, absolutely no one, was authorized to use those scoped rifles stored under lock and key by the superintendent. Corey must have snatched one without notifying anybody. A gust of wind blew off his hat and sent it rolling across the chopper pad.
Montgomery jumped from his seat and chased it down. When he handed it over, he noticed a glob of dried blood on Corey’s shirt collar and the back of his neck was scratched raw.
“Thank you, ranger,” Corey said, as if speaking to someone he didn’t recognize. “Ready to fly?”
Over the whirl of the chopper blades, Montgomery could only read his lips. “Winds are gusting to thirty knots,” he shouted back. “And they’re calling for heavy precip.”