He was interrupted by the ranger on the other end.
“No,” Montgomery shouted. “Who’s on call?… Where’s the superintendent?… Do not call Greta McFarland… There’s no emergency, dammit. I’ll give you a call back in another hour with a weather report. Remember, there’s no need to bring McFarland in—”
The other radio shut off before he finished.
FORTY-SEVEN
Dieter and Josh trudged down a path meandering through the pines beside a rushing stream. Josh’s limp, an old trapper’s gait, contrasted with Rocko’s bearing, Dieter thought as he followed directly behind the llama and marveled at how lightly the grand animal stepped along. His footpads were as soft as a kitten’s, barely leaving a mark. He wished for Rusty by his side. At times, he glanced at the metal box tied onto Rocko’s pannier just below the antenna mounted on the saddle horn. The red light on the top of the box never gave a hint of flashing. He wasn’t sure of the device’s range or even if it was working.
Whenever they neared water, Rocko grew nervous and moved with caution. Josh said llamas were scared silly around a stream or river, a fear born of wisdom since they couldn’t judge the depth and weren’t swimmers. They’d hiked at least two miles before they stopped to rest on a flat boulder. Clouds whipped across the sky as blue jays and ravens cackled in the trees.
Dieter took measure of Josh. What was it that drew the old trapper to him? Who else could have lured him into a freezing storage bin used for a corpse? Josh knew nature and wildlife more than anyone he’d ever met. Always looking for adventure, he was old enough to be his father. But he was different from his own dad in every way. For one, he was sober. Although he lived alone he never claimed to be lonely. Many could only dream of the life Josh lived. When he wasn’t fishing or hunting for his dinner, he was tending to the llamas he loved or sitting in his front yard contemplating his world by day or watching a moonrise by night. Whatever the tie binding Dieter and Josh, it was growing tighter each day.
A bull elk bugled in the distance. A narrower trail split off the main one. Overgrown with weeds and clearly not well-traveled, it was more a path than a trail. Walking down it a short distance, fresh wolf tracks appeared.
“He’s going for the river, Doc. This is just a short spur leading south to the Gallatin. That’s where we’ll hit another trail down from Bighorn Pass.”
“Does it go all the way across the Park?”
“Not that far. But if you take it east, it follows the river up through the Bighorn Pass to the center of the Park. If you head west, you go back to Highway 191 where we came from. The renegade could be making just one big circle.”
“But if he took the trail through the pass, where would he end up?”
“Indian Creek. There’s a campground at the—”
“My God, Josh, Indian Creek is where Michael and the Boy Scouts are this weekend.” Dieter brushed a hand through his hair and took a deep breath. His gut was right about keeping Michael away from the Camporee. Or maybe he was too protective. Maybe Amy was right. He was hovering too much over the kids. That’s something that Fran would never have accused him. She did the hovering for both.
“It’s a good fifteen mile from here, Doc.”
“But it’s a distance a wolf can easily cover, isn’t it?”
Josh paused. “Don’t get all shook up yet. It won’t take long until we reach the river. Then we’ll see from his tracks where he’s headed.”
Josh and Rocko led the way along the narrow weed-choked trail. In one stretch, the wolf tracks disappeared for fifty yards before Josh picked them up again. At the Bighorn Pass trail the Gallatin ran swift and clear. Rocko moved cautiously to the riverbank to lap water. As Josh watched over the llama he remarked that upstream above the falls the river flowed wider and deeper.
“A waterfall?” Dieter asked.
“You’d be surprised how often you run into those natural beauties in the backcountry.”
Dieter had already prepared himself for the news before Josh examined the tracks. The wolf was headed upstream, toward Indian Creek. When they came across scat just off the trail, Josh leaned down and stretched his hand out to linger above the pile. He looked up. “Warm.”
Dieter glimpsed at the meter hanging from Rocko’s pannier.
“Keep an eye out. A wolf can smell you a mile away,” Josh said. “Can hear you coming from twice that. Especially with low cloud cover.”
“You mean like now?”
“Like now. His senses make him the ultimate hunter. No animal on earth can match it.”
The chopping hum of rotors arose like a thunderstorm.
“Take cover!” Dieter shouted. Josh grabbed Rocko’s lead and they moved under a pair of cottonwood trees as the helicopter passed overhead. It flew low enough to reveal the NPS emblem on the tail section. When it was gone, Dieter looked skyward. “Corey told me they do regular sorties to monitor the wolf packs. But they do that with small planes. If they’re making flyovers in choppers, something must be going on.”
FORTY-EIGHT
From his bedroom window on the second floor, Joseph Vincent Loudermilk watched the patrol car crawling along the highway. He suspected it would turn out like this. But he had his supplies ready, his canvas duffel bag packed and by the bed.
Charlene, the little runaway twat, had probably been found. She wasn’t even able to do that right. She’d spill everything, making him out to be Satan himself.
She never understood the ways of the Lord. God knows he tried to teach her. He had the Sermon on the Mount memorized. How many men in Montana could say that? He delivered it to her how many times? Word for word, just as written by the hand of God in the King James Version of the Book of Matthew.
The law didn’t understand the ways of the Lord neither, but what else would you expect? He was a God-fearing man. He’d never done nothing to his wives or children that wasn’t right, wasn’t part of his duties. He always had the Lord’s approval before he ever laid a hand on any of them.
If that little twat had listened to him, obeyed him, learned from him, she would’ve been a better woman, a better mother and wife. She would’ve had the chance to meet the Lord Jesus Christ in person in the Latter Days. She gave all that up. Why would any woman of sound mind give up that chance?
He crept downstairs and hid by the fancy draperies hanging from the picture window in the living room. Sliding between the wall and a drape, he inched his head along the wall until one eye caught the view out the window. The deputy sheriff’s car was parked off to the side of the road, a hundred yards down from the gate and almost out of sight.
He moved from behind the drapes and yelled for Enos and Jeremiah. Round up the younger kids, he calmly told them. Go into the living room and sit in a circle. Just sit there and stay quiet. They carried out his orders quickly, efficiently. Good boys. Well-trained. They understood.
He rushed into a back bedroom and grabbed an extra blanket from the closet, then stuffed it into his duffel bag. Spotting a small rope on the closet floor, he added it to his cache.
Outside, he carried the bag over his shoulder, an arm slung through one strap. He sneaked beyond the barn and through the trees, getting as close as possible to the gate without being seen from the road, then stooped behind the bushes. He could barely make out the figure down the road of the deputy slouched in his seat.
An elbow protruded out the open window. The deputy appeared to be talking into his two-way radio.
The rusted pickup with Katherine Belle and Marilee stopped at the gate. He ducked down into the bushes and slowly pushed his head up to watch. Marilee opened the passenger door and moved toward the gate, holding onto a ring of keys.