William Krueger - Heaven's keep

He also gave Cork a Falcon II handheld radio. The last thing he offered was a topographic map of the area.

“I’m going to maintain a command post here at Nightwind’s place. Take care of that radio. It’s set on our search and rescue frequency. Provided you’re somewhere high enough that the topography doesn’t block the signal, we’ll hear you.”

“We’ve both got cell phones,” Parmer said.

“Yeah, well, good luck getting a signal in the Absarokas. However you do it, keep me apprised of your situation as best you can.”

“All right,” Cork said. He looked to Nick. “You willing to show us that trailhead your granddad talked about?”

“Yes. It’s not an official trail or anything, it’s just how Lame goes into the mountains. But it leads to a national forest trail that begins north of Dubois and cuts into the Washakie Wilderness. It’s not a good trail, and it’s hard going. Almost nobody but Lame ever follows it.”

“Can you show us?” Cork said, and he unfolded the topographic map Kosmo had provided.

It took Nick a minute to orient himself, and then he said, “It kind of runs like this and will take you right to the base of Heaven’s Keep.”

Cork folded the map and slipped it among his gear. He and Parmer mounted, and Cork swung Nick up behind him. Under a threatening sky, they rode away.

They dropped the kid a couple of miles beyond the cabin where the trail-a thin, bare line in the coarse grass-led along a stream through a stand of lodgepole pines.

“Follow the stream,” Nick said. “It’ll take you maybe five miles into the mountains to a pond. On the other side of the pond it joins the Dubois trail. If you think you’re lost, just look for Heaven’s Keep and head toward it.”

“Thanks, Nick,” Cork said. “You’ve been a big help.”

“Lame’s not a bad man,” the kid said.

“He’s done bad things,” Cork said.

“Father Frank says that sometimes even good men do bad things.”

Parmer said, “Nick, you keep listening to Father Frank.”

“We’ve got it from here,” Cork said. “Go on back. I’m sure your grandparents need you.”

Nick stood unmoving, reluctant to abandon them, and even after Cork and Parmer had urged their horses into the pines, he remained a long time, watching.

The trail wasn’t difficult to follow. The ground was soggy from the spring melt, and Nightwind’s horse had left clear tracks in the muck. They rode all afternoon and climbed in altitude, and the air grew colder and the clouds thicker and after a while a drizzle fell. They got out the ponchos they’d packed and put them on and kept riding. They began to see patches of snow in those places the sun didn’t hit. Eventually the trail became covered with slush that was full of hoofprints marking Nightwind’s passage. Late in the day it began to rain in earnest, but they rode on until they could no longer see because of the darkness.

They camped without a fire at a place where the trail broke from the heavy cover of pines and led across an alpine meadow. Just beyond the trees on the far side, the land climbed a steep slope with a rocky face that even in good daylight would have been dangerous to attempt. They positioned themselves along a stream where the horses could water. With the stub of a pencil he’d found in the pocket of his coat, Parmer had been tracking their progress on the map Kosmo had provided, and he calculated that they’d gone nearly fifteen miles. While Parmer hobbled their horses for the night, Cork tried the radio in order to report their final location, but he got only static. They settled in between two fallen trees that provided some protection and didn’t light a fire for fear Nightwind might see.

“How much farther, you think?” Parmer asked as they sat eating tuna and crackers.

“To the cabin? Only Nightwind knows that.”

“Think he knows we’re following?”

“He’d be a fool to believe that somebody wasn’t.”

“How do you think he’ll do it? If he decides to jump us, I mean?” Parmer didn’t sound nervous, just interested.

“I’ve been trying to think like Nightwind,” Cork said. “What is it he really wants out of this?”

“To get away?”

“Get away to what? The woman he loved is dead. He’s given up his ranch. And I keep thinking about that note. Unfinished business. What business?”

“I hope to God we have a chance to ask him,” Parmer said.

In the rain and without moonlight or even the ambient light of the stars, they were nearly blind. Parmer, just a few feet away, was almost invisible. Only from the occasional snort and the clap of a shoe on an exposed stone did Cork know where the horses were hobbled.

“Cork?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you really believe it’s possible Jo’s still alive?”

Cork didn’t answer.

“I mean, where would he have kept her all this time?”

“I don’t know what’s possible anymore. I couldn’t have imagined that anyone would survive what happened in Bodine’s plane, but she did.”

“Could she be his unfinished business?”

“I wish I knew, Hugh. I wish to Christ I knew. Let’s get some sleep.”

He pulled his blanket around him but didn’t sleep immediately. He spent a long time staring into a dark that was full of things unknown.

In the night, the drizzle turned to snow, and in the morning, in a shroud of falling white, the two men rose, donned their body armor, mounted their horses, and continued after Nightwind.

They rode through the day without incident, the whole time in snowfall. Periodically they stopped to rest the horses, but only briefly. In the afternoon, the snow came down harder and a wind kicked up. The blowing mess cut their field of vision to less than a hundred yards. Nightwind’s tracks became harder to follow. Cork knew that the snow and the clouds would bring an early dark, and he was worried he would lose his quarry. Every hour or so, he or Parmer tried to raise Kosmo on the radio, to no avail. They both understood that until the weather cleared they were cut off and alone.

Late in the afternoon, they came to a stream that issued from what appeared to be a deep canyon. The tracks of Nightwind’s horse led beside the stream and into the canyon.

Parmer checked the map. “Dead-ends a couple miles farther.”

Cork balked at following the tracks. In a canyon, if Nightwind knew he was being followed, it would be easy for him to establish a vantage above and pick them off. And the dead end was doubly disconcerting. Cork’s natural inclination was to climb to higher ground and try to track from above. But if he did that, he might lose Nightwind for good and in doing so lose any hope of finding Jo.

“We split up here,” he finally said. “You head up, follow the rim. I’ll stay below with the stream.”

Parmer looked ahead into the canyon. “If he’s going to jump you, this is where he’ll do it.”

“It’s where I’d do it,” Cork agreed.

“If that happens, do your best to keep him busy,” Parmer said. “I’ll get behind him as fast as I can. If you hit the end of the canyon and nothing’s gone down, backtrack and I’ll meet you here and we can figure what to do next.”

They shook hands. Parmer turned his horse up the slope and began to mount toward the canyon rim. Cork made sure the magazine on his Savage 110 was full, and he chambered a round. He cradled the rifle across his lap and urged his horse ahead at a walk.

In the protection of the canyon, the wind ceased to be a problem, but the snow still dropped a translucent curtain all around. Above him, the rock walls, dotted with juniper and scrub brush and jumbles of broken rock, rose up and disappeared in the snowfall. The ground snow was deeper here, sometimes reaching midway to the horse’s knees, and the only sign of the trail was the mess left by the passage of Nightwind. Judging from the lack of drift in the prints, Cork figured the man wasn’t far ahead.