“You don’t allow it?”
“Strictly forbidden.” Phelps blew out his ginger mustache. “Likewise outboard motors, electric generators, and so forth. We even discourage shouting, yodelling, and general raising hell. A man who takes the trouble to hike into the wilderness wants peace and quiet, and he’s entitled to get it.”
Dutchman’s Pass slid below, snowbanks gleaming; ahead lay Persimmon Lake. Phelps pointed out the trail to the pilot. “The falls are about two miles along. There’s a meadow just this side, where you can put this thing down.”
“Keep your eyes open,” said Collins. “It’s just possible we might surprise somebody.”
But the trail seemed empty of life.
Then they saw Lomax Falls, and the wooded flat below.
“That’s it,” said Phelps.
The pilot examined the meadow with a sad expression. “I thought you said there was a place to sit down.”
“Sure. In that meadow.”
“I’m glad there’s no wind. We’ve got about ten feet to spare.” He settled slowly. The downwash thrashed through the foliage. The helicopter landed with one wheel in the stream.
The five men descended and stood in the bright green growth that covered the meadow — tarweed, fern, sorrel, miner’s lettuce, watercress in the stream — while they assessed the dark forest all about. Then they crossed the meadow to the trail. A hundred feet north they found Genneman’s body, apparently as his friends had left it, wrapped in plastic and suspended from a tree.
Collins, in the lead, said, “Everybody stay on the trail. There just might be tracks.” He proceeded slowly, and stopped where the dust was stained an evil reddish black. He looked about him. Trees grew on both sides of the trail. To the left, after twenty feet, they gave way to the rearing mountainside, its granite glaring in the sunlight. To the right, the trees grew in a belt, perhaps sixty or seventy feet across, extending parallel to the trail. Then the ground sloped sharply and became granite once more, with occasional areas of loose scree.
From the puddle of dry blood, an avenue about five feet wide led to a copse of four young cedars thirty feet from the trail. The shot which had killed Earl Genneman had obviously been fired from these cedars. There, on a heavy outsprung branch, the shotgun had undoubtedly rested.
It required half a minute of peering among the tree trunks before Collins could rid himself of the conviction that malevolent eyes watched his every move. He dismissed this fancy impatiently and appraised the terrain. The ground here, yellowish sand and crumbled granite sprinkled with needles, showed no footprints. The four cedars outlined a square, with a small space at the center where a man could stand. Here the ground showed signs of disturbance — a scuffing of needles, a scraping into the dusty gravel. From within the area a waiting man had a view of the trail and could have watched without fear of detection.
Collins reconnoitered the area with great care, while the others lowered the plastic-swathed corpse and carried it to the helicopter. He went to the edge of the slope and looked down into the valley. Far below a little river ran, among great boulders, trees, vines and scrub. The mountainside offered no cover; the assassin could not have escaped by sliding downhill; he would have been seen — if he could have avoided breaking his neck. Likewise he could not have escaped to the south. He would have met the dead man’s companions. A single avenue of escape lay open: north, behind the screen of trees. A few seconds would have been ample. Collins moved north, searching for traces of such a flight.
Almost at once he found a disturbance among the needles, indentations in the ground. He called Sergeant Easley over, instructed him to photograph the marks, and to look around for others. Collins himself returned to the four cedars from which the shot had been fired.
He inspected the branch on which the gun apparently had rested. The bark showed a faint bruise or two. Collins cut away a strip of the bark with his pen-knife and dropped it into a cellophane envelope. Then on hands and knees, he scrutinized the ground. But he found nothing remotely resembling a clue. He scooped a sample of dirt into another envelope, and for good measure added a few dead cedar fronds.
He walked out to the trail and reconnoitred. In a tree a few feet off the trail he found several pellets which had missed Genneman’s head. Sighting back from this tree across the bloodstain on the trail, he once more saw the clump of cedars — corroboration, if any were needed, that there the killer had stood.
Was it Genneman he intended to kill? Or anyone who came along the trail? Was the motive robbery? Lunacy? Hunger? Was the killer the lone man who had presumably followed the group and camped at a discreet distance across Persimmon-lake?
Collins closed his mind to speculation, pending more facts.
Sergeant Easley returned with photographs taken by his Polaroid camera. He had tracked the footprints — if that was what the marks were — back to the trail, where they disappeared. Otherwise he had found nothing of significance.
Collins summoned Dr. Koster, the pilot, and Superintendent Phelps. “I’ll be the killer. Phelps, you play Genneman. Easley, you bring up the rear. I want you all to go back along the trail, strung out like a group of back-packers. Walk this way. Don’t look at me, but observe whether I’m noticeable. When I say ‘bang’ drop to the ground, and after a reasonable interval come looking for me.”
The four men came along the trail. Phelps stepped into the little clearing. “Bang!” shouted Collins. Phelps dropped, avoiding the clotted blood on which flies were feasting.
Collins took his imaginary shotgun, retreated through the trees, and regained the trail a hundred yards north. He returned to find the others still cautiously reconnoitring the forest. “That’s enough,” said Collins. “Did anyone see me?”
Only Phelps, playing Genneman, had done so. “Frankly, though I was looking for you. I wouldn’t have seen you otherwise.”
“Well,” said Collins dubiously, “that seems to be the story.”
He went back to examine the four young cedar trees. The limb was rather low to make a comfortable gun-rest. Of course, the killer would not have worried about mere comfort. Perhaps he had been a short man.
Another thing, he thought. There was very little room to maneuver. With a shotgun resting on the low branch, the killer, stooping or squatting to aim, must have been crowded back into the foliage. Unless he had allowed the gun barrel to show... Once again Collins examined the cedars, hoping to find a hair, or thread or wisp of fiber, but without success. He returned to the trail.
Phelps looked at him quizzically. “Well, what do you make of it?”
Collins gave a grunt. “About the same thing you do. I want to locate the man that came up-trail behind Genneman’s party.”
“Anything more you want around here?”
“No.”
Phelps kicked loose sand over the blood. Then they walked back to the helicopter.
The motor roared, the blades swung, the helicopter eased up and away from Lomax Meadow, and Earl Genneman began his journey home in a manner he would certainly have deplored.
Persimmon Lake was only two miles distant; they barely had got up into the air, it seemed, than they settled again on the flat. This was a different type of landscape entirely: a valley surrounded by snow-covered peaks, almost treeless, with the blue oval lake at its center.
Phelps led the way to where Earl Genneman and his party had camped, the site marked by the ashes of their campfire.
“As best I can gather,” said Phelps, “the lone man had his camp around the shore at the northern end of the lake. That’s how Mr. Retwig describes it, and he seems pretty observant.”