Sundown on Top of the World: A Hunter Rayne Highway Mystery (26 page)

Constable Serge Boudreau brought the patrol boat around. It was an open eighteen foot, flat-bottom boat with a hundred horsepower motor, more than adequate to fight the current. The wind had picked up and whitecaps had begun to form on the surface of the river. As the boat drew close to the bank, the constable cut the engine and Hunter jumped over the bow on to the shore, pulling the boat behind him until half of it was lodged on land. Orville jumped out behind him and hurried across the beach to the overturned skiff.

Underneath, they saw an assortment of items, including a couple of empty jerry cans, a length of rope and a heavy tarp, some kitchen items and a bundle of clothing. “Definitely Betty’s,” said Orville. He picked up a quilted jacket with a fur-lined hood. “I saw this hanging in her kitchen.” He looked up at the heavy grey clouds overhead, then tucked the jacket under his arm. “She’ll be sorry she left this behind. She might want it when we find her.”

Hunter smiled sadly to himself at Orville’s use of ‘when’ instead of ‘if’, and hoped his optimism was justified. The old man had obviously grown very fond of Betty Salmon. Hunter had seen too many unhappy endings in his life and fervently wished for a positive outcome for both Betty’s and Orville’s sakes.

Hunter spoke to the constable, who had remained seated beside the motor in the back of the boat. “Let’s take it slow heading upriver until we see anything to indicate she’s been there. We can cut the engine from time to time so Orville can call her name if we’re on a stretch where it’s not possible to travel on foot within sight of the river.” He nodded at the lanyard with a whistle around Boudreau’s neck. “Her granddaughter says she took her dog. He might respond to your whistle.”

They carried on upriver along the shoreline, Hunter occasionally lifting the binoculars that hung around his neck for a closer look at something. The constant wind was cool, but clouds had already started to thin in the west, holding out the promise of clear skies and the sun breaking through as it rose higher in the sky. They had been travelling slowly upriver for almost an hour and Hunter judged they were halfway to the abandoned townsite at Fortymile, where the Fortymile River entered the Yukon from the west. There was a break in the trees lining the eastern bank. It was the wide mouth of a creek.

“She couldn’t have made it across here.” Hunter had to raise his voice for the others to hear him above the sound of the motor. He gestured at the wide mouth of a creek that emptied into the river. “Not here. She’d have had to hike upstream to find a better place to cross.”

Boudreau nodded. “What do you want to do?” he hollered back.

“What’s that?” Orville pointed to something floating in the water about fifty yards up the creek. “See that thing floating? Over there, about ten feet from that flat rock.”

Hunter located the object through the binoculars. “Could be a piece of tarp. Looks like it might be caught up on something.” He signaled to Boudreau to bring the boat closer.

It took some careful maneuvering to get close enough to grab the object without getting the boat hung up on a submerged log. To reach it, Hunter had to lean well out of the boat and stretch his arm out as far as he could. Orville shifted to the other side of the boat to counterbalance. It took two passes, but Hunter was finally able to unhook the object from the branch of the submerged log that had snagged it. He held it outside the boat as its folds released a steady stream of water.

“It’s a pack,” said Orville. “Look at the way the ropes are looped. It was meant to be carried on somebody’s back.” He reached for it, almost pulling it out of Hunter’s hand. “Let me see it. Let me see what’s in it.”

For it to remain as intact as it was, Hunter knew it hadn’t been in the water very long. He hesitated to speculate on how and why it had ended up floating down the creek, but it was hard not to imagine that the owner had once been in the water with it. If the current had carried the owner past it and into the Yukon River, it was highly unlikely that he – or she – had survived.

“Let’s see how far upstream we can take the boat,” Hunter shouted over the noise of the engine.

Boudreau nodded and pointed the boat’s square nose upstream. Hunter stood near the bow, scanning both sides of the creek for any sign of the pack’s owner, while Orville’s fingers struggled with the knots in the wet rope as he tried to unwrap the contents of the tarp.

“It’s hers! It’s Betty’s.” Orville held up a faded red and gold tin labeled Red Rose Tea. “She wouldn’t go anywhere without her tin of tea.” He dropped the tin back onto the wet tarp and, like Hunter, began to look intently at the creek banks.

Hunter pointed to the bank on the right. “You concentrate on this side, I’ll do the other,” he said.

“Keep an eye out for rocks and logs near the surface,” shouted the constable from the rear of the boat. “I don’t want us all to end up in the river.”

Just after he spoke, something thudded against the underside of the boat. Hunter sucked in his breath. The noise was too soft to have been something hard, like a rock or a log. They all turned to look behind the boat, to see if what they hit would surface behind the propeller. A spruce branch, needles intact, spun slowly away from the back of the boat.

The creek began to narrow, and up ahead they saw that the creek bed was steeper and less even, creating a stretch of white water. Boudreau steered the boat to a tiny bay with a gently sloping shoreline and shut off the engine so they could talk. Since they didn’t know if Betty had made it across the creek, it was decided that they would split up. Boudreau, mindful of Orville’s status as a prisoner, said he would drop Hunter on this side, which was the south side, while he accompanied Orville on the other.

“Let’s call first,” said Hunter, standing in the shallow water at the shore and holding the boat’s bow rope. “Call or whistle in case she’s within hailing distance.” And able to hear, he thought.

Orville began to call Betty’s name, but Boudreau held up a hand to silence him, then with his hands framing the sides of his mouth, he let out a yell that Hunter found astonishingly loud. “Hallooooo!”

The three of them listened intently for an answering sound, then the constable yelled again, even louder. No response.

“Meet back here if we don’t connect upstream?” asked Hunter. When Boudreau nodded, Hunter grabbed a pack out of the boat – one of three Search and Rescue Packs that they had brought – then gave the boat a shove back into the current. He watched them until they’d found a suitable spot about forty yards downstream and had pulled the boat securely up onto the bank before he began to walk upstream along the shoreline.

Without the sound of the motor and away from his companions, Hunter became aware of how loud and constant the rush and tumble of the water could be as it hurried over and around the rocks of the creek bed. Even Constable Boudreau’s loudest call would be easily eclipsed by the noise of the creek wherever there was white water. He had to admit that it gave him scant hope. Finding her pack in the water had been an ominous sign.

He could go only so far along the bank before he was forced to detour around a rocky outcropping. This took him far enough into the trees that the sound of the creek faded to a whisper. There wasn’t anything you could call a trail. He followed the proverbial path of least resistance, wherever he could see an opening, sometimes forced to scramble over or duck under wind-fallen trees, often removing his pack to do so. He peered through the underbrush and tree boughs that surrounded him, looking for any sign that Betty might have passed this way, but realized that in many places he could be within ten feet of her – or anything, living or dead – and remain completely unaware.

He began to whistle. It started out as a series of random notes as he walked, a five second tune at most. He paused mid-step to listen, and heard only the sound of the creek, muted by distance. Five seconds, and a pause. Five more seconds, and a pause. Random notes coalesced into a familiar melody, dredged up from somewhere in his past, and the words started to sing themselves in his head.

Darling, I am growing old,

Silver threads among the gold
,

Shine upon my brow today,

Life is fading fast away.

The last line of the chorus seemed a little ominous, but it was just a framework for the noise he was making, after all. If Betty hadn’t been swept into the Yukon River, she might hear a human whistle and answer back, or her dog might bark. The song recalled winter evenings in his parents’ home with his father on the old upright piano and himself on the violin. His mother would stand with one hand on his father’s shoulder, leaning close enough to read the words in the music book, her voice a clear soprano. He felt an unexpected twinge of nostalgia.

Another verse came to mind as he kept whistling, and considering Orville’s obvious fondness for Betty, he wondered if perhaps the song was fitting in more ways than one.

Love is always young and fair,

What to us is silver hair,

Faded cheeks or steps grown slow,

To the hearts that beat below?

What was that? He strained to listen, not sure if he had actually heard something more than a chickadee’s call or a raven’s squawk. When he heard nothing further, he stuck four fingers in his mouth and whistled as loud as he could, then listened again. Nothing.

He kept going.

– – – – – FIFTEEN

Dan Sorenson stopped at the Dell Hotel on the King George Highway in Surrey, less than ten minutes from home. He parked his Harley outside the lounge, grabbed a beat-up leather pouch from his saddle bag and headed inside. He paused a moment at the door, letting his eyes adjust to the low light. The bartender was a guy he knew, and a few bikers he used to drink with were bellied up to the bar.

He had planned to just hit the men’s can and leave, but Twitcher had turned around and seen him.

“Hey, man,” the guy said, and more heads turned toward him. “Long time, no see. How you doin’?”

Sorry nodded. “Good, Twitch. How ‘bout you?”

Doughboy invited him to come sit down. “I’ll buy you a beer.” He gestured to the bartender. “Pour him a beer, man.”

Sorry felt stuck between a rock and a hard place. Now that he’d been seen, he couldn’t very well just use the john and walk out, but if he arrived back home with beer on his breath, he’d be up shit creek with Mo.

“Give me a sec, okay,” he said and ducked into the hallway that led to the john. Once inside, he relieved himself, then went to the sink and splashed water on his face. He had a toothbrush and a nearly empty tube of toothpaste in his pouch, along with a comb and razor. He decided the shave could wait till he got home, but gave his teeth a good brushing and combed his hair. Then he took a deep breath and headed back into the pub.

The beer was sitting there with his name on it. The glass was frosty and the beer had just the right amount of head. He could smell it from where he stood beside Doughboy, and it smelled damn good. He made a little small talk with Doughboy and Twitcher; he knew they’d rib him if he told them the truth.

As offhand as he could make it, Sorry asked them if they’d run across a bike mechanic in town who looked like a Yukon native.

“A native what?” asked Doughboy.

“Indian, what else?”

“A Yukon native is anybody who was born in the Yukon, bro,” said Twitch, and started telling a story about his own trip to the Yukon, back in ’84. Sorry stood there nodding, eyeing the beer as his mind replayed that conversation with Hunter, the one where Hunter had said ‘At this moment, drinking that one beer is more important to you than making your boss happy and keeping your job’, but right at this moment the stakes were even higher. It was about making Mo happy and keeping his family together.

When Twitch finished his story, Sorry clapped a hand on Doughboy’s shoulder and – as much as it hurt to give it up – slid that frosty beer glass down the bar toward him. “Thanks, man, but the fact is I haven’t seen my woman for almost two weeks and I’m kind of in a hurry, if you know what I mean. I want to greet her with minty breath.” He exhaled pointedly in Doughboy’s direction, then pulled the last of his folding money out of his jeans pocket and slapped five bucks on the bar. “The beer’s on me.”

Doughboy made a face, but he didn’t refuse the beer or the five bucks.

Sorry headed out the door feeling pretty proud of himself, but by the time he’d peeled out of the parking lot onto King George, he had a sinking feeling in his gut. Was Mo going to be happy to see him? Was she even going to be home? Or had he given up the beer and a fiver he could ill afford for nothing?

Hunter had been bushwhacking his way through the Yukon wilderness for almost an hour and was at a point close to the riverbank, judging by the noise level of the creek.

He wasn’t sure if Orville and Constable Boudreau had kept pace with him on the other side, and had begun to wonder how far up they creek they should go looking for traces of Betty Salmon when he heard a faint rustling in the underbrush about fifteen feet ahead. He froze. An unarmed man was not at the top of the food chain in this part of the world, and he couldn’t control the rush of adrenaline that prepared him for a fight. Flight was out of the question. There’s no way he could outrun a predator, or even an angry moose, in this terrain.

A tangle of leaves parted, he saw the black nose and white muzzle of a dog. “Hootie?”

Betty Salmon’s dog emerged from the foliage. His coat was disheveled and he had two canvas bundles hanging lopsided on his back, the ropes holding them creasing the fur from his chest to his shoulders, yet he seemed happy to see Hunter. Hunter dropped to one knee and said, “Hey, fella. Good boy.” As the dog approached, Hunter could see that the fur on his left shoulder was matted with blood, and he could see a jagged tear in the tarp on that same side. Either the dog had fallen hard and scraped the tarp and his shoulder on something sharp, or it had been a blow from a hoof or claw. The dog was still able to walk; there was no time to investigate the injury.

“Good boy,” he said again. “Where’s Betty?”

He knew he would soon have an answer. If Betty was on land, Hootie would have stayed by her side. In that case, she would be nearby, and he was certain the dog would return to her. If she’d disappeared in the water, Hootie would feel lost and wait to follow Hunter’s lead. “Where’s Betty?” he repeated, as if the dog could understand.

The dog stood looking at Hunter for a few seconds, then turned and took a few steps in the direction he had come. He stopped and glanced back at Hunter, as if to ask him, “Are you coming with me?”

“Good boy, Hootie,” he said. “Let’s go find your mom.”

He didn’t have to follow far. Moments later he saw Betty Salmon’s body lying on its side, the legs bent in a semi-fetal position, and half hidden by bushy undergrowth at the base of a small spruce. She wasn’t far from the bank of the creek, but he wouldn’t have spotted her without the dog’s help. Hunter went down on his knees beside her, shrugging the SAR pack off his shoulders as he did so. He called her name, but she didn’t stir, so he leaned in close to feel for a pulse at her carotid artery. Although her skin was cool, it wasn’t cold. When he didn’t feel the pulse right away, he adjusted his position and eventually felt a light throb beneath his fingertips. He held the back of his hand close to her nostrils, and was able to feel soft but even breaths.

Her clothes were damp but not wet, so he judged that she’d been out of the water for at least a couple of hours. The broken stems and crushed foliage in front of her chest and abdomen hinted that her best friend had been lying next to her, sharing his body warmth, and possibly keeping her alive. As if to confirm, Hootie emerged through the scrub and stood in the same spot, his eyes moving from Betty to Hunter and back again.

Hunter’s first move was to open his SAR pack and find the thermal blanket. He ripped the plastic package open and tucked the blanket close around Betty’s body. He then stood up and worked at the wet knots to remove the pack from Hootie’s back. As the ropes loosened, the pack fell to the ground and Hunter moved it out of the way. The dog immediately went down for a good long roll, then shook the dead leaves and spruce needles out of his fur. When Hunter lifted the edge of the Mylar blanket and invited the dog to lie down next to the unconscious woman, Hootie seemed to understand what he was asking and curled up next to her.

Hunter’s next move was to signal to Orville and Constable Boudreau to cross the creek and join him so they could transport Betty out to the boat. He told Hootie to stay, hoping the dog would understand, and made his way down the low bank to the edge of the creek. It looked shallow enough to cross, even more so a few hundred feet upstream, so he felt hopeful they could access the creek bank and make the crossing without too much difficulty. He yelled and whistled in case they were close enough to hear. When there was no immediate response, he searched in his pack for emergency flares. He found a smoke flare, as well as an emergency whistle. He used the whistle a few times while he figured out how to activate the flare.

While the flare sent up a stream of white smoke, he set about gathering dry twigs and branches to light a fire. If Betty Salmon became conscious enough, with a fire he could heat up some water to make a tea or broth. Not only that, if the other two were bushwhacking in an area surrounded by trees, they might not see the smoke before the signal flare went out. He might need the fire to create a more long-lasting smoke signal, if the flare didn’t do the trick.

It didn’t take him long to find out.

At first Betty was confused. She opened her eyes and saw something silver, a silver sheet – she felt something like plastic against her cheek – and beyond that she saw green leaves. The silver plastic was disorienting. It wasn’t natural. What was it doing here in the bush? Her entire body ached. She tried to move her left arm, but it was tucked up against her chest, its movement blocked by something heavy pressed up against her. She moved her fingers, and realized that what she was feeling was animal fur, and then she remembered the bear. She froze, afraid to reveal to the bear that she was still alive, but it was too late. The animal moved, and she felt the loss of its warmth against her chest, and then she felt its warm breath and saw its black nose.

“Oh, my friend, my sweet, sweet friend.” She sobbed with relief when she saw the worried eyes of her dog searching her own, and she reached up to draw his head to hers. “You didn’t leave me, Hootie. You’re okay.” She struggled to raise herself onto her elbow and hugged Hootie’s neck with the other arm, but almost immediately fell back. ‘I’m weak as a kitten,’ she thought to herself, confused again.

She couldn’t keep her eyes from closing and immediately drifted back to sleep.

“How did you get her to the nursing station in Dawson?”

Hunter was in a reception area cum waiting room at the nursing station, essentially a public clinic, in Dawson City. He was on the phone with Bart, giving him an update on the search for Betty Salmon. “She refused to lie down on the stretcher, so we mickey-moused a travois of sorts that she could sit on,” he told Bart. “We had to threaten to tie her down at first, she was determined to walk out under her own steam.”

“Independent old gal, eh? Sounds a lot like my grandmother,” said Bart. “So taking her to the nursing station was just a precaution?”

“No. The spirit was willing, but the flesh was weak. She did try to walk, but her legs gave out before she took two steps. Hypothermia and exhaustion. It’s lucky the day was warming up instead of cooling down when she fell in the creek, or there’s a good chance she wouldn’t have survived. Her clothes were soaked, but her dog – a big old Malamute – had been lying beside her and kept her from getting colder. When Orville showed up with her warm jacket, he literally gave her the shirt off his back so she’d have something dry against her skin. While your man and I built the travois, Orville undressed her, gave her his dry shirt and wrapped her in thermal blankets. He hung the rest of her clothes in the sun and made her some kind of hot broth – whatever those cubes in the SAR pack are – so by the time we hauled her out of there she had warmed up quite a bit.

“Constable Boudreau had to hike down the north side of the creek to pick up the boat, so Orville and I took turns, one of us dragging the travois and the other following behind to hoist it over obstacles – not an easy job with all the deadfall – until we reached the beach we’d started from. The nurse who got her settled in bed thinks she’s out of the woods, but they want her to stay here overnight for observation.”

“I’ll call her granddaughter. I assume she and her boyfriend will pick the old girl up and take her back to Eagle. I’ll suggest they pick her up in the morning. You’re coming back tonight with Serge and the prisoner?”

Hunter hesitated. Orville had been by Betty’s side since they found her. He knew the old man wouldn’t want to leave Betty Salmon until Goldie showed up, and neither did Hunter, but he doubted that Bart would allow his officer stay in Dawson just to let a prisoner keep his lady friend company.

“For sure. I’d like to have a little more time with Orville,” he told Bart. “I spent some time talking to him on the drive up, and I might be close to getting him to reveal the identity of our other suspect.”

“Did you say ‘our’ suspect?”

“I’m tired, chief. Slip of the tongue.” Was that what people referred to as a Freudian slip? El’s comment about him playing cop came back to him. “We’re all tired. Before we head back, we could all use a few hours sleep, at least. Boudreau’s been doing most of the driving. I doubt if he managed to nap more than an hour or two in the last thirty-two, and we did some rather strenuous bushwhacking.”

“I thought Serge was game to start back almost right away. What if you two spell each other off on the driving?”

“I’m as tired as he is. Either one of us would be likely to fall asleep at the wheel.” He ran a hand down his face, his three day beard rough beneath his palm. He felt in no condition to drive, and was sure the constable would feel the same.”I’ll talk to the staff here. Maybe they’ll let us sleep on a couch or a couple of spare cots here at the nursing station so we can crash until the granddaughter arrives.”

A couple of hours later, after sharing a pizza, Hunter and Boudreau were asleep in the nursing station. Hunter was slouched on the couch in the waiting area; the constable had arranged for a cot to be placed just outside the room where Betty Salmon slept. Boudreau had bought a small bag of dog food for Hootie, who had eaten ravenously. The nurses turned a blind eye when Hunter brought him in to Betty’s room, and he was now asleep on the floor under her bed. Orville was dozing in a chair beside the bed, handcuffed to the bedrail while Boudreau caught some sleep.