C Box - Blood Trail

“From the angle of the entry and the exit,” Lothar said, “we can assume without doing any definitive ballistics or testing that the shooter”-he turned and pointed over Joe’s head to the top of the ridge behind them-“was there.”

Joe followed Lothar’s finger. On the horizon was a bump of a knoll-perfect to hide behind.

“Will we be lucky enough to find a shell casing?” Lothar asked aloud but rhetorically as they climbed toward the knoll. “A cigarette? Anything? It’s a shame Americans don’t smoke anymore. In Europe, Asia, and the Middle East I can always count on finding butts.”

Joe labored up the slope directly toward the knoll.

“No!” Lothar said. “Stop. Do not go up there.”

Joe stopped, confused.

“Look,” Lothar said, and Joe turned. In a depression in the granite, filled with fine sand deposited by the wind over the years, was a definitive boot print.

“It’s perfect,” Lothar said, as if examining a diamond. “I’d guess size eleven, Vibram soles but worn enough so the track is distinctive, one eighty, two hundred pounds based on the impression. Perfect!”

“It looks fresh,” Joe said. “The wind or weather didn’t get to it overnight.”

“Even better than that,” Lothar said, “is I doubt it was made yesterday. I think it’s today’s track, last night’s at the very worst. Our man is still around.”

Joe felt a chill wash over him.

While Lothar slipped his daypack off to prepare to make a composite cast, Joe looked back at the knoll.

“Don’t you want to see what’s up there?” Joe asked.

“Not now.”

“What do you mean? When, then?”

“Not until dark,” Lothar said. “We come back at dark.”

“Why wait?”

Lothar looked up. “Joe, do you remember how when you got down on the ground down there you could see clearly where the victim was dragged? But that when we were just walking along we couldn’t discern a thing?”

“Yes.”

“That’s why we track at night. It all comes out at night. You’ll see what I mean. Trust me.”

“But won’t he get away?”

Lothar nodded. “He might. But if he took the chance of coming back here, for whatever purpose, he might have reason to stick around.”

BACK AT the crime scene, Lothar briefed Pope on what they’d found and how he intended to take action. When Lothar mentioned the possibility of the shooter still being in the area, Joe saw Pope’s face drain of color.

“Maybe we should retreat to the vehicles,” Pope said, “you know, so we can rest up.”

“You mean get out of the line of fire,” Lothar said. “Good idea.”

As they hiked back to the trucks, Pope said, “The governor is prepared to issue a warning urging hunters to pack up their camps and go home. He’s preparing to close all state lands and alert the Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, and private landowners of what’s going on.”

“My God,” Joe said.

“That’s right,” Pope said. “I begged him to hold off, to give us a few days. But he’s worried as hell that Klamath Moore will spill the beans anytime now. If Moore tells the world that hunters are being systematically hunted down and executed and it looks like the governor has been withholding that information, he’ll look worse than incompetent. He’ll be liable, and so will we.”

Joe grunted.

AS THEY walked up the hill toward the trucks, Joe felt vulnerable and exposed in more ways than one. Literally, they were in the open on the slope, and if the shooter was still out there it would be an easy shot with a scoped, high-powered rifle. He looked over his shoulder at the mountainside he and Lothar had just scoured. It wasn’t inconceivable that the shooter could drop back over the rim into the knoll he’d used to kill Frank Urman and train his rifle on the four of them.

“AND THE hits just keep on coming,” Robey said to Joe and Pope as they approached the vehicles. “I talked with the sheriff’s departments in Albany and Fremont counties. One guess what was among the items found in John Garrett’s pocket when his body was brought in, and what was found inside the mouth of Warren Tucker but wasn’t included in the reports for some unknown goddamned reason?”

“Red poker chips,” Joe said.

“Yes,” Robey said. “Red poker chips.”

“Maybe the governor should close things down,” Joe said. “It’s looking like what we hoped it wasn’t.”

“That’s what Rulon’s new chief of staff is advising him,” Pope spat. “She’s telling him he should have done it yesterday.”

Joe thought, She’s a smart woman.

Pope reached out and grasped Lothar’s arm. “We’ve got to find this shooter. Do you understand? We’ve got to find him tonight. ”

Lothar pulled away, annoyed. “I can’t promise anything,” he said.

“But you need to,” Pope said, his eyes bulging with the kind of intensity Joe had seen directed at him several times. “That’s why we brought you here. That’s why we’re paying you. This guy out there is about to destroy my agency.”

Lothar looked away from Pope to Joe and Robey and mouthed, Asshole .

Wally Conway, who’d seen the interaction, looked away passively, not taking sides.

THE AFTERNOON got colder as they waited for darkness. Joe sat in his pickup next to Robey and glassed the timber and meadows through his spotting scope, looking for movement of any kind. He got the strange feeling that the birds and wildlife had subtly withdrawn from the area, clearing the stage for whatever was going to happen later. Robey nervously ate pieces of jerky from a cellophane bag he’d brought along. Piece after piece, chewing slowly. The cab of the truck smelled of teriyaki and anticipation.

Pope appeared at Joe’s window, blocking his view through the scope.

“I’m heading back into town,” Pope said, not meeting Joe’s eye. “I can’t run the agency with a cell phone that keeps going in and out of signal range. Let me know how things go tonight. Wally has agreed to stay here with you. Lothar’s getting all of his stuff out of my Escalade. He’ll have to wait with you.”

“You’re leaving ?” Joe said.

“Do I have to repeat myself? You heard me.” With that, he patted the hood of Joe’s pickup and walked away.

“Bastard,” Robey said through a mouthful of beef jerky.

“Would you rather have him here with us?” Joe said.

“No, but…”

“Let him go,” Joe said. “Wacey Hedeman once said of Sheriff McLanahan-before he was sheriff-‘Having him on the payroll is like having two good men gone.’ That’s how I feel about Pope being here.”

“He’s scared,” Robey said.

“So am I,” Joe said, getting out to help Lothar retrieve his gear from Pope’s vehicle.

AS DUSK approached, the wind died down and the forest went silent, as if shushed. Joe used his tailgate as a workbench and checked the loads in his Glock and shoved an extra twelve-shot magazine into the pocket on the front of his holster. He loaded his shotgun with double-ought buckshot and filled a coat pocket with extra shells. Because of the cold stillness, the metal-on-metal sounds of his work seemed to snap ominously through the air. He’d strapped on his body armor vest and pulled on his jacket over it, and filled a daypack with what he thought he might need: flashlight, radio, first-aid kit, bear spray, GPS unit, rope, evidence kit, Flex-Cuffs, a Nalgene bottle of water.

Lothar approached him. “I think it should just be the two of us,” he said.

Joe looked up at the back of Robey’s head in his pickup. He could see his friend’s jaw working as he ate more jerky. “I hate to leave Robey alone,” Joe said. “He’s not used to this kind of thing.”