C Box - Trophy hunt

"A fisherman just reported seeing a vehicle and trailer matching the description of the suspect's vehicle and trailer at a public-access fishing campground."

Joe and Nate exchanged glances, and Joe snatched the microphone from its cradle.

"This is Joe Pickett, Wendy. There are six public-access campgrounds on the Upper Twelve Sleep River. Can you tell me which one?"

There was a pause, then: "The fisherman says he saw the unit in question at the Pick Pike Bridge campground."

Joe knew which one she was talking about. It was the last public-access fishing location before the start of the national forest. It was small, with four or five spaces, and was located in dense woods. The only facilities there were a pit-toilet outhouse and a fish-cleaning station near the water. Because of the way it was tucked into the heavy timber near the river, it was a good place to hide out. He had ticketed more over-limit fishermen there than any other place on the river, because the fishermen assumed no one would see or catch them.

"I'm fifteen minutes away from there," Joe said to Wendy. "Are there any other units in the vicinity?"

"Sheriff Barnum is rolling now," she said.

"That's right," Barnum barked, breaking into the transmission. "Secure the exits and wait for the cavalry."

Secure the exits? Joe looked at Nate. "Sheriff, there's one road into that campground from the Bighorn Road, but there's at least four old two- tracks that go to it from both sides of the river. That makes five exits."

"Then use your best judgment, goddamit," Portenson broke in from another radio. "I'll take it from here, Sheriff. Follow me."

Joe was relieved that Portenson was taking charge.

They topped a sagebrush covered hill on a two-track road, and the river and campground were laid out below on the valley floor in front of them. Joe slowed the pickup to assess the layout. The Twelve Sleep River, its surface reflecting dusk gold, rebounded in a loopy sidewise U from a cliff-face upriver before it turned and disappeared from view into thick river cotton- woods. The campground was under the canopy of trees where the river bent. As Joe had described to Barnum, roads that looked like discarded dark threads through the sagebrush came in and out of the bank of trees, offering multiple entrance and exit points. If Garrett's truck and trailer were down there in the trees, they couldn't be seen from above. To locate them, they would need to be on the valley floor, in the trees or in the campground itself. Joe had made the decision not to wait for Portenson and Barnum. If Not Ike was being carved up by Cleve Garrett, Joe wanted to stop it as quickly as he possibly could. I've already screwed this thing up enough, he thought. I couldn't live with knowing I was sitting on top of a hill while Not Ike was being tortured. Joe asked Nate, "Are you ready?" Nate said, "Of course."

At home, Marybeth was making spaghetti with meat sauce for dinner when the telephone rang. She was greeted with silence on the other end, although she thought she could hear breathing. "Hello?" she said again. Nothing. Marybeth put the spoon on a plate and was about to hang up when someone said, "Marybeth?" It took a moment for Marybeth to recognize the caller. "Marie? Is that you?" Marie hesitated, then spoke softly. "I got your note. That was very nice of you. But it was too late, too late." Marybeth knew there was something dreadfully wrong by the soft, vacant quality of Marie's voice. "Marie, are you okay?" There was a wracking sob, then a beat while Marie seemed to be collecting herself. "No, I'm not okay," Marie said, her voice breaking. "I'm not okay at all. Cam's gone, and I've done something horrible. They took him." "Who took Cam? Marie, what are you telling me?" She recalled her conversation with Joe, his admonishment to stay away from Cam. But Marie couldn't answer because she was crying too hard, and she finally barked out "I'll call you back," between wails, and hung up. Marybeth found herself staring at the stove but not really seeing anything. She realized that she was suddenly trembling. Where was Joe? He needed to meet her at the Logues' right away.

As they leveled out on the river valley floor and crossed a small stream before entering the trees, Joe punched off his cell phone and squelched the volume of the radio to a whisper. Both windows were open in the pickup, so he and Nate could get a better sense of the surroundings. Joe drove slowly, keeping the sound of the motor at a minimum. He wanted to enter the campground as quietly as he could.

They passed a brown Forest Service sign nearly obliterated by years of sniping and shotgun blasts that read PICK PIKE CAMPGROUND.

Inside the trees, it was dark and it smelled damp, with an edge of forest- floor decay. Pale yellow cottonwood leaves blanketed the soft black earth. Small splats of sun pierced through the wide canopy of trees and formed starbursts on the surface.

Nate gestured toward the two-track in front of them, and mouthed, "Fresh tracks."

Joe nodded. He had seen the tracks as well, noting that they were so new that the peaked impression of the tire treads was still sharp.

Nate had his.454 Casull in his right hand, the muzzle pointed toward the floor. Joe's.40 Beretta was on the seat next to his thigh. Joe's palms were icy with apprehension, his breath was quavery and shallow. He found himself clenching his jaw so tightly that his teeth hurt.

Before turning toward the campsites, the road passed a rusting metal fish-cleaning station near a boat takeout point on the riverbank. They were past it when Joe sniffed the air and eased to a stop. There was a smell that didn't belong, he thought.

He opened his door as quietly as he could, and approached the station. Nate did the same, but walked toward the bank of the river. The fish- cleaning station was old and simple; a flat metal work area perched on angle-iron legs. The cleaning area could be washed clean by a river-water faucet. Usually these things smelled bad, he knew, but the normal odor was of fish guts, fish heads, and entire rotting skeletons if the fisherman filleted the trout and left the rest. The problem with this station was that it didn't smell like that at all, he realized. Instead, there was the pungent odor of ammonia bleach.

Indeed, the metal cleaning counter was scrubbed clean. In the center of the counter was a drain hole. The drain led to an underground pipe that discharged into the river itself.

Either the station had been used by unusually sanitary and obsessive fishermen, he thought, or it had been used for another purpose.

His stomach clenched.

Joe looked up to see Nate gesturing at him furiously to come over to where he stood at the water's edge.

As Joe walked over, he had a sickening premonition of what he might find.

Nate bent down and pointed toward the discharge pipe several inches below the surface of the river. A long white ribbon of some kind had caught on an underwater twig and undulated in the flow. Nate reached into the water and pulled the ribbon free, stretching it across both of his hands so they could look at it.

It was human skin. White human skin. On the bottom of the ribbon was a dark blue stencil of some kind, a series of three consecutive horizontal lines. Through his horror, Joe realized what they were. "Oh, my God," he whispered. "That's the top of some lettering, T-E-E." He looked up at Nate. "From the word 'ABDUCTEE.' It's from Deena. She had it tattooed across her abdomen. The son of a bitch skinned her."

Now, Joe was angry. Everything he had been feeling previously- frustration, embarrassment, outright fear as they descended into the trees-channeled into rage. "Let's find him and take him out," he said over his shoulder to Nate as he strode to the pickup. Tilting the bench seat forward, Joe drew his shotgun from its scabbard. It was still loaded with double-ought buckshot shells. Nate followed. "Joe, calm down." "I'm calm," Joe said through clenched teeth. He was thinking of Deena, of Not Ike, of Tuff Montegue and Stuart Tanner, of the circus of humiliation and depravity Cleve Garrett had brought into his valley. "Let's talk about this for a second," Nate said. Joe racked the pump. "We need a strategy," Nate said. "So take a breath."