Endangered (25 page)

—

B
ACK AT HIS PICKUP
,
Joe tried again to see if he could raise a signal on his cell phone or radio. Nothing.

He dug his satellite phone from the back gear box and he tried to get a signal through the snowfall and tree canopy. It didn’t work, either.

It was oddly quiet within the elk camp. Snow floated straight down and muted outside sound. There was about three inches of snow on the ground now, but not enough to be concerned about. How beautiful it looked, he thought. Even the worst scenes could be improved by a layer of white snow.

Joe placed the shotgun muzzle down on the floorboard and marked the location on his GPS for later. He called Daisy back into the cab and hoisted himself behind the wheel. He performed a three-point turn on the grounds of the campsite to head back down the mountain. There was an hour of daylight left and he thought there was no reason he shouldn’t make it. Going down the switchback road would be faster than coming up. The only thing he had to worry about was not pushing too hard and sliding his tires off the rocks and the truck into the trees.

As he turned the wheel and pointed the nose of the pickup toward the slot, it suddenly filled with a pair of headlights that blocked the exit.

Joe recognized the pickup immediately by the steel pole and crossbeam in the bed: it belonged to Bull Cates.

—

I
T H
APPENED FAST
,
so fast Joe almost didn’t have time to react.

Bull slammed his truck into park and bailed out with a semiautomatic rifle loaded with a large magazine, the driver’s-side door thumping the rock wall because it was such close quarters. He had to step back to close the door to give himself a shooting lane.

Joe considered flooring the accelerator of his own pickup in the hope that the head-on collision would knock Bull’s vehicle out of the entrance. But Bull’s truck was a three-quarter-ton four-wheel-drive, and Joe drove a half-ton Ford F-150. At best, he might push Bull’s vehicle back a few feet but he would probably injure himself in the process. Instead, Joe reached for his shotgun.

But Bull was faster. There was a sharp
crack
,
a hole in Joe’s windshield at eye level, and searing pain on the right side of his head.

He flopped more than dove to his right, pinning Daisy to the bench seat.

Bull was firing as quickly as he could pull the trigger.

Round after round punched through the windshield and exited through the back. Slivers of glass were everywhere, on Joe’s clothing, in Daisy’s coat, all over the seat, on the floorboards. As he writhed, trying to get even lower, he saw bright red blood on Daisy’s head and shoulders, lots of it, but she didn’t seem to be hurt.

Then he realized the blood was coming from
him
. Nothing bled like a head wound.

Bull apparently leveled his aim and Joe felt the bullets thump into the grille of his pickup and actually rock it back and forth on its springs. A bullet caromed off the front hood into the shattered windshield and the entire plate of glass imploded and fell into the cab like a collapsed roof.

Joe tried to recall how long the magazine was on Bull’s rifle and tried to guess how many rounds he had left. He knew his truck had been hit at least twenty times, maybe more.

He reached up to the side of his head with his right hand and when he took it away it was covered with blood. He could actually hear it pattering on the fabric of the bench seat when it wasn’t pouring onto Daisy. Joe couldn’t tell how badly he was hit. His right eye socket was filled with blood and he wiped it clean with his shirtsleeve to clear his vision. He recalled once encountering a hunter who flagged him down because he said he had a terrible headache. Turned out he had shot himself in the head. He died before the EMTs could arrive.

Suddenly, the cab filled with acrid steam. He recognized the smell as fluid pouring from the radiator through bullet holes onto the hot engine. It stung his eyes and made Daisy whimper.

Crack-crack-crack-crack-crack
.

The pickup jerked with every shot, and it was remarkable how fast the punctured tires deflated.

Then silence.

—

T
WENTY SECONDS OF SILENCE.
Snow fell inside the cab through the frame of the missing windshield.

Joe could only guess what Bull was doing. Approaching the truck? Reloading? Waiting for Joe to rise up and look around so he could finish him?

Although his ears were ringing from the rifle shots, Joe heard a metal-on-metal sound and then the distinctive snap of a bolt being engaged.

Reloading.

Daisy whimpered again and Joe realized he was crushing her. He repositioned himself so she could breathe more easily. As he did, slivers of glass tinkled from the seat to the floorboards.

“Hey, game warden, are you in there?” Bull called.

Joe didn’t respond.

“Good thing I took the long way home tonight and ran across them tire tracks in the snow. I followed them all the way here, but I didn’t think it would be you.”

The voice didn’t sound any closer. Joe imagined Bull was still near his own truck, probably still on the side of it, since he’d been able to reach into the cab for his second magazine.

“I told you I’d get even with you for taking away my livelihood,” Bull said. “I just never figured you’d come to
me
.”

After a beat, Bull said, “Hey, I’m talking to you.”

Joe didn’t raise his head. He held Daisy down with his right hand and searched through the broken glass on the floor for his shotgun. When he closed his hand around the grip, he felt the piercing bite of dozens of tiny slivers of glass in the flesh of his palm.

Because she didn’t like being confined, Daisy moaned.

Bull obviously heard it and mistook it as coming from Joe. He said, “What do you know? It sounds like you’re hurt. I
thought
I got you with that first shot.”

Joe pulled the shotgun closer to him.

“Since you seen that van, there was only one way this could go,” Bull said. His voice was growing louder. He was cautiously approaching Joe’s pickup. Joe could hear boots crunch in the snow.

Joe was at an odd position: facedown on the seat with a dog underneath him and the shotgun at his side. It would be difficult to scramble around to defend himself.

Slowly, he rolled to his back and squared his shoulders. He used Daisy as a pillow. He raised the shotgun so it was next to him on the seat, pointing toward the driver’s-side door.

The crunching got closer.

Joe lowered his eyelids, but didn’t shut them tight.

There was a beat of silence, then the top of Bull’s face appeared in the driver’s-side window. It vanished before Joe could react.

He waited, then Bull slowly raised back up. Joe saw the crown of Bull’s cowboy hat with a dusting of snow on it, then the brim. Then Bull’s narrow-set eyes. When Bull saw Joe’s condition, saw the blood, his eyes scrunched in a smile.

Joe raised the muzzle and shot Bull in the forehead and he dropped out of view.

The sound of the discharge within the cab was so loud, all Joe could hear was a dull buzzing in his ears.

—

H
E SAT UP
and pulled on the door handle and kicked it open with his boot. The body, not two feet from the truck, thrashed in the snow for thirty seconds, then went still. A river of blood steamed through the snow like hot syrup. Bull died with the top half of his head gone and his arms and legs splayed out as if he were making a snow angel. The .223 Ruger Mini-14 tactical rifle lay at his side. The barrel was still so hot from all the firing, it had melted the snow around it.

Joe slid down from the seat. When his boots hit the ground, he swooned on rubber legs and he grasped the side mirror for support. Daisy jumped out and went straight to the body, sniffing it from top to bottom, her tail working like a metronome.

He was still holding the mirror bracket for support when he looked at his reflection. He thought,
No wonder Bull thought I was dead.

Thick rivulets of blood covered his entire face. His collar and the front of his shirt were black with blood, and when he turned his head he could see where blood was still pulsing out of an ugly slash just above his right ear. He touched the wound with the tips of his fingers and found it numb. The bullet had broken skin and exposed a white line of slick bone. He’d never seen any of his skull before.

One more inch to the left and he would have been dead.

—

A
FTER CL
EANING HIS FACE
with snow, Joe opened his first-aid kit and did the best job he could of taping a square of gauze over the wound. Within a few seconds, the gauze turned pink, but the blood had stopped flowing.

He was even able to clamp his hat back on.

When he turned and saw that Daisy was eating snow near Bull’s body that had been colored with a mist of blood and bits of brain matter, he yelled harshly at her. She slunk away, looking humiliated.

Then he threw up between his boots and waited for the last of the adrenaline in his bloodstream to burn off.

S
heridan and Lucy Pickett stood shoulder to shoulder on a small open balcony they’d discovered on the fifth floor of the hospital—April’s floor—and watched the snow fall on downtown Billings. Although it wasn’t yet dark, the streetlights had come on below and they lit up the snowflakes like fireflies. The streets were black and wet and the girls could hear the distant sizzle of tires.

“God, I’m sick of winter,” Sheridan said. “It seems like it’s never going to end.”

Lucy nodded in agreement. She was still a little surprised when her older sister talked to her like she was a peer. Although the circumstances that had brought them together were terrible, Lucy felt more mature and intelligent standing there next to Sheridan, who was both.

Since Sheridan had been away at college for three years, the family adjusted. When Sheridan came home for summers or holidays it got confusing because no one really knew what role to assume while she was back. Was it like before, or different? Sheridan seemed to want to maintain the independence she had gotten used to in Laramie, but at the same time she expected to be treated as she had been before she left, when it came time to having dinner, getting laundry done, and having her parents pay for everything. At the same time, her old responsibilities—feeding the dogs, putting away the dishes, vacuuming the living room—had fallen to Lucy, and Sheridan had no compulsion to take them back. The hospital seemed like a neutral location, though, neither home nor college. Lucy enjoyed being regarded as a peer by her sister. Finally.

“People use this balcony to smoke,” Sheridan said, using the toe of her shoe to scrape flattened butts off the concrete. “I’m sure they’re not supposed to, but they must come out here to light up when nobody is looking. You’d think doctors and nurses would know better, wouldn’t you?”

“I guess.”

“You’d be amazed how many kids I know who smoke cigarettes,” Sheridan said. “Of course, even more of them smoke weed. It’s just too easy to get down in Colorado now.”

“I know some kids who smoke weed,” Lucy said.

“That’s too young.”

“You should tell
them
that. I’m sure they’d stop,” Lucy said with a sly smile.

Sheridan huffed. She obviously didn’t like getting needled, even when she deserved it. Sheridan could be bossy and haughty because she was the oldest and most put-together. At least that’s what everybody thought.

Sheridan said, “Don’t
you
start smoking.”

Lucy shook her head. “I tried it and it made my throat sore. I just didn’t like it at all.”

“Good.”

“What about you?”

Sheridan watched an airplane descend toward the Billings airport up on the rimrocks above the city. She said, “I smoked weed with April once, back before she turned into a cowgirl. I guess I was trying to bond with her, sort of, during her outlaw period. I didn’t like the way it made me feel. I
hate
not feeling in control. And don’t you
dare
tell Mom and Dad.”

“I won’t. Was it yours or April’s?”

“Hers.” After a beat:
“Of course.”

“Do you think she’ll ever be . . . normal?” Lucy asked her older sister.

“I don’t know. She looks terrible.”

“Mom said she looked worse last week.”

Sheridan shook her head. “You just wonder, you know? What if she comes out of it with real brain damage? How are Mom and Dad going to cope with that? What if she needs constant care? If that’s the case, maybe it would be better if . . .” Her voice trailed off.

“Don’t say it,” Lucy said.

“You’re right.”

The balcony door opened and Marybeth looked out and said, “There you two are.” She sounded frustrated. “What are you doing?”

“Nothing,” Sheridan said. “Just watching the snow. Did you think we were smoking?”

“Why would I think that?” Marybeth said.

“I was just kidding, Mom,” Sheridan said, shaking her head.

“Aren’t you getting cold?”

“A little,” Sheridan said.

Lucy asked her mom, “How are
you
doing?”

“Fine,” Marybeth said. “Well, not really. I can’t get your father on the phone. I’ve called the house and his cell phone. Finally, I called the dispatcher and she said she’d try to raise him.”

Both girls turned toward their mother. Whenever she referred to Joe as “your father,” it meant she was angry with him. Sheridan said, “This sounds kind of familiar.”

“I
know
,” Marybeth said. “It happens all the time. But I don’t want him to go off the grid
now
.”

“You know Dad,” Sheridan said. Lucy always envied her sister’s close relationship with their dad. It was a result of being the oldest and also being the most willing to spend time in his world. At the same time, Lucy knew she couldn’t fake interest in hunting, fishing, and driving around in a pickup, checking licenses.

Regarding Sheridan’s comment, Marybeth just shook her head. Her eyes were hard.

“What does the doctor say?” Sheridan asked.

Marybeth took a deep breath as if to put her anger with Joe aside for a moment. “They’ve completely stopped the propofol drip. Now it’s a waiting game. They’re thinking she should regain consciousness by midmorning. They’ll watch her vital signs all night and be on the alert for problems.”

“What kinds of problems?” Lucy asked.

“Maybe a seizure,” Marybeth said, reaching out and putting her hand on Lucy’s shoulder. “It could be anything, I guess. But if she comes out of it on schedule and without problems, well, we’ll know something tomorrow.”

Lucy nodded.

“There’s nothing we can do tonight except be with her and pray,” Marybeth said softly.

“We could eat,” Sheridan said. When both Marybeth and Lucy looked at her, she said, “Sorry, that sounded bad. What I meant was, we should have dinner and maybe get checked into the hotel. Then we could do shifts during the night so everyone gets at least a little sleep.”

Marybeth considered it for a moment, then nodded briskly. Sheridan knew how much her mother loved a mission. “You’re right. I’ll call the hotel, and I’ll get some dinner recommendations from the front desk. What do you girls want to eat?”

“Not elk steak,” Lucy said.

“I’d
like
elk steak,” Sheridan said, gently shoving her sister, who smiled. “I miss it.”

Marybeth rolled her eyes, then told them she was off to make the calls. She said she also had to meet with the financial representative at the hospital administrative office about still-unresolved insurance issues.

“Are you two going to stay out here in the snow until it gets dark?” Marybeth asked.

Sheridan shrugged.

“Okay, I’ll find you.”

A few moments after their mother had left, Sheridan said, “Are you sure he’s here?”

Lucy nodded.

“Where?”

“On the same floor. But they won’t let us see him.”

“We’ll see about that. Follow me.”

Lucy said, “Are we going to get in trouble?”

“Maybe. But he’s my master falconer. I have a right to see him.”

To Lucy, it sort of made sense. And if Sheridan was willing to try it, why shouldn’t she?

—

S
HERI
DAN HAD DISCOVERED
the storage room earlier that afternoon as she wandered the hallways. She told Lucy she’d watched a hospital staffer in scrubs push a laundry cart down the hallway to the door and press four buttons on a keypad to release the lock. The staffer didn’t seem to notice that Sheridan was watching over his shoulder and that she could see which numbers he pressed. She’d waited for the man to leave before trying the code. It worked.

Sheridan pressed 7-7-7-1 and the two girls slipped inside and shut the door behind them.

The room seemed to serve as a transfer station between the hospital rooms and the laundry on some other floor. Carts of old scrubs and bed linens were crowded inside, and the walls were lined with shelving filled with clean bedsheets, towels, and other linens.

“Find something that will fit,” Sheridan said, leaning over and rooting through the nearest cart. She pulled out a light green scrub top and held it to her chest, then discarded it as too large. “Try not to find something with blood on it.”

Lucy froze.

“What, did you forget this was a hospital?”

“I’m not sure we should be doing this,” Lucy said.

“It’s an adventure,” Sheridan said, pulling a pair of short, wrinkled scrub bottoms out of the pile. “Here—try these. An elf must have worn them and they might fit you.”

“Funny,” Lucy said drily.

“And look what we’ve got here,” Sheridan said, opening the top drawer of a gray metal desk. Lucy could see it was filled with ID badges and lanyards.

“Probably people who don’t work here anymore,” Sheridan said, handing one to Lucy and looping another over her own head.

Lucy looked at the photo of a heavyset Hispanic woman on the ID Sheridan had given her, and said, “I don’t look anything like Lupé Rodriguez.”

Sheridan waved her off. “No one ever checks these things,” she said, as if she’d done it a thousand times before. “Just watch my lead.”

—

S
HERIDAN CRACKED OPEN
the door and peeked outside. Their streetclothes were on one of the shelves. Now Sheridan wore pale green and Lucy wore pale blue. Both sets of scrubs were wrinkled but clean.

“Clear,” she said.

“Which way?” Sheridan asked Lucy once they were in the hallway. Lucy gestured toward the end of the hall, then right.

Sheridan walked with haste and whispered, “Move right along, Lucy. Pretend you have a purpose.”

Lucy giggled.

“And don’t giggle. Act like you belong here. And remember: if we get there, we’ve got to get in and get out fast before someone sees us or Mom comes back.”

Lucy nodded. She glanced at their reflection in a window as they strode past. They looked authentic, she thought. She’d always liked dressing up, much more than Sheridan or April had.

When they turned the corner, there were two people in the hallway. A janitor in scrubs and blue vinyl gloves pushed a dust mop along the baseboard with his back to them. Next to him was a wheeled cart with a bright yellow Rubbermaid garbage bag, two shelves of cleaning supplies, and a sharps disposal tube on the side. A pop-up tent cone was set up where he was mopping that read
CAUTION/CUIDADO
. Farther down, a woman in a business suit with her back to them strode toward a closed door with a sign on it that read:
AUTHOR
IZED PERSONNEL ONLY
.

“Through there,” Lucy said to Sheridan.

Her sister picked up her pace. She leaned in toward Lucy and said, “We need to get to the door before it closes.”

Lucy nodded that she understood.

The woman in the business suit swiped a key card through a receptacle on the right side of the double doors and there was a soft click. Without turning around, she pushed through.

Sheridan sprinted ahead past the janitor and an empty nurses’ station, Lucy on her heels.

As the doors wheezed shut, Sheridan slid her right foot on the polished floor and wedged it between the two doors before they closed and locked. It was a smooth move, Lucy thought. Sheridan reached back for her hand before pushing through.

The woman in the business suit kept going, her heels clicking like punctuation. She swiped her key card again and vanished inside an office.

As the doors closed behind them, Lucy saw Sheridan look over her shoulder. The janitor had seen them run past him, and Lucy guessed her sister wanted to make sure he wasn’t dashing off to call security.

The doors closed tight and the lock clicked.

Sheridan said to Lucy, “Did that janitor look familiar to you?”

“I was running—I didn’t look at him.”

She shook her head. “There’s no way I could know him, is there?”

Lucy shrugged.

“I got a really bad vibe from him,” Sheridan said. “He’s thin, but athletic-looking, I thought. He’s got tattoos on his forearms and neck, but I guess everybody does these days. Did you see his eyes?”

“I told you I didn’t get a good look at him,” Lucy said.

“He’s got a deadeye stare. He had cold eyes. I got a bad feeling off him. But I’m probably wrong.”

Lucy thought Sheridan was doubting herself. She’d been wrong before, a few months ago, when she thought a fellow student was dangerous. She’d been wrong about the student and the result was tragic. Since then, no doubt, she’d not quite trusted her intuition as she once had. Lucy had never had that problem. She wished she could have gotten a better look at the janitor.

“Okay, never mind,” Sheridan said. “Let’s find Nate.”

“There’s some man who won’t let anyone in,” Lucy said. “Like a guard. I heard Mom and Dad talking about him.”

“We made it this far. We have to try.”

As she said it, a portly man in a sport jacket and tie appeared in the hallway. He was walking toward them, pulling on an overcoat. He didn’t look like a doctor or an administrator and Lucy thought:
Oh no
.

“Come on,” Sheridan said, sotto voce. “Act like you know where you’re going.”

Lucy fell in beside her. She hoped the man didn’t look at her too closely and notice her age. Casually, Sheridan reached up and flipped her ID badge so that the photo and name couldn’t be seen. Lucy did the same.

As the man got closer, he nodded to them. “Evening, ladies.”

Sheridan turned on a smile and said, “Dinnertime?”

“It sure is,” he said. Then he paused, looking hard at them. Especially at Sheridan, who stood with her head cocked and her mouth parted. Lucy was surprised how flirtatious and brazen Sheridan was being with him. It was a side of her sister she’d never seen before. Sheridan was drawing his attention toward her and away from Lucy, and Lucy was grateful.

While he looked deeply into Sheridan’s eyes, Lucy took a glance at his credential and saw the name Dudley.

He said to Sheridan, “I don’t suppose I could treat you to a quick bite?”

“What about my colleague?” Sheridan asked.

Dudley shot a glance at Lucy but she looked away as if embarrassed. She didn’t want him to study her face.