Trapline (16 page)

thirty-two:
wednesday, late afternoon

Download the spirit of
Devo.
Be tough, find food, stay hydrated.

Another day, another slog.

The distance wasn't that bad. At the end of the trudge would be Trudy and her kitchen.

Hunger nagged at Allison's insides, but it wasn't true hunger, just a body grumbling about lack of routine. She wasn't that tired, just pissed off she didn't have a horse. She wasn't that wet, but her bone marrow was starting to slosh around.

Sunny Boy.

The dogs.

Dillard.

And company.

Why didn't they come after her? Was she being followed now? Doubtful. She gave an occasional look over her shoulder, but the woods were too wet, too inhospitable.

So why cut the horse loose—or steal it? At least she'd have some good leads for the cops, if they could be bothered.

Allison snaked her way through dense woods, picking her way up slopes packed with dead trees, soaked barkless trunks as slick as black ice. Keeping a straight line was dicey. Continually checking on her bearings, maintaining a set distance from the open valley, was exhausting. She would stick to the cover for another hour or so and then maybe risk making better time in the open, back on the trail.

Allison's legs screamed from the uphill work and her feet, thank you very much, would rather be settled in a pair of stirrups. She didn't take horses for granted, did she? Even at walking speed, they were faster than a human and they made the work look easy. At least, they rarely complained or balked, didn't ask for much in return.

Allison slipped into a semi-trance. Legs moved, brain evaluated the course for the next few steps, legs moved, eyes checked the trajectory against the open field to the south, legs moved. All negative thoughts were banished, cancelled, forbidden. At the mere first syllable of mental complaint, she slashed at the body of the word with a hot sword fresh from the fire. Bad thoughts were not allowed to gain traction. Every step, in truth, was easy. Putting all the steps in a row in one compressed effort was the hard part. She could use a quart of water but she wasn't utterly dry. She wasn't marching off a landing craft at Omaha Beach. She wasn't scaling K-2 without oxygen. She was walking in the Colorado woods in the rain and she'd be home, pending a random mountain lion attack, for dinner. The trance sucked her down, pulled her under into a quiet, small zone where problems were identified, run through triage for a quick and precise evaluation of their true risk factors, and just as quickly dispatched to the back of the waiting line and told to get real.

She pictured in detail, down to the order of the drawers in her dresser, her Iowa childhood bedroom. She went step by step through helping her mother prepare a Sunday roast. She saw the lumps of butter in the mashed potatoes. Allison remembered names from her senior high school class, 73 in all. She made it to 29 when the names went fuzzy and blank. She switched to working on a list of her hometown streets and then thinking with obscene clarity about her parents and the terrific gift they had offered by allowing her to disappear, essentially, into a broad and rugged landscape and step away into another world where her basic functions consisted of riding a horse in the mountain woods of Colorado, helping hunters set up camp after riding a horse in the woods of Colorado and helping hunters pack out their kills by riding a horse in the mountain woods of Colorado.

Except, of course, no horse.

Not this time.

She thought about the half-corpse, went over every detail in her mind, replayed arriving at Lumberjack Camp. She pictured the teenagers. She thought about the half-corpse and the sticks and the houndsman and the trail and then the trail vanishing. She wondered if the Lamott shooting investigation might be closer to done and would that mean they might shift their attention to the half-corpse? She wondered if they gave a shit about the half-corpse, a sad body from the woods with no name and no witnesses and no dramatic cell phone video. The half-corpse had no constituency, no advocates. She wondered if it was fair that certain celebrity shootings and celebrity attempted murders and celebrity murders drew more cop resources than others. If you are going to get murdered and you want your killer caught, she thought, make sure you've got some good public relations buzz before you get whacked.

The trance eased. The rain, too. Sun chewed its way through the raindrops and lit up a high ridge. The footing turned less sponge-like. Her body caved to the steady pace of work. She was so tired she might turn Colin down if he asked. But a meal by Trudy and drinks
by Mr. Hornitos might put her back in the mood, as long as she wasn't required to perform any Twister-style positions. Why shouldn't every body part end up the day as sore and ready for rehab as all the othe
rs? As Colin liked to say,
it doesn't count unless it hurts.

Allison moved to the open valley. She had seen nobody all afternoon. It was time to declare herself, at least for the moment, un-pursued.

She allowed a ten-minute break on a high spot. She scanned the view behind the binoculars, the only useful manmade object in her possession. No elk, no deer, no mountain lions. If all went well, she figured to reach Trudy's front door by 10 p.m., time for a fashionably late dinner in Paris or Athens, if not in the U.S.A.

She scanned ahead too—and quickly found a lone rider on horseback.

Apparition.

Mind playing tricks.

She was in the Sahara and this was a Bedouin in search of his next oasis.

Just because she had thought of Colin in the past ten minutes didn't mean she could conjure him up. The figure was a bouncing dot on the trail, but his riding style was unmistakable, as tall as he could sit and as natural, as one-with-horse as a man could get. The combination of living things was a magical meld. He was coming down a long, straight draw. He was moving in earnest.

The horse had the muddled colors of a dirty roan, like Merlin. Horse and rider disappeared from view as the trail pulled them down out of sight through a thick stand of aspen, shimmering and drenched in the spackled bits of sunlight.

Suddenly, they were right there, the pungent sweat of a horse happy in her nose.

“What the hell—”

With the apparition taking on three-dimensional form and sounding like Colin McKee, every repressed ache came roaring to life.

“You came,” said Allison.

“Of course,” said Colin.

“How did you know?”

“How did I know what?” Colin's embrace was the hug of the century. “Are you okay?”

“But how did you know?”

“Sunny Boy,” said Colin. “He showed up a couple hours ago, winded and worn out. Lead rope had been sliced clean. There was a group out hiking, came across him walking down the trail. Like he was out for a Sunday stroll. They couldn't tie him up or leave him so they turned around and started heading back and when I came across them—”

Colin stopped.

“You were out,” said Allison. “Looking.”

“I've got some sandwiches,” he said. “And water. Plenty. The hikers took Sunny Boy back.”

These words were being said over her shoulder. She had his neck in an elbow-powered vice grip.

“Come on,” said Colin. “We can ride double.”

Inside, her body was singing or dancing. Or smiling. If non-verbal
expression was possible, say, by bones.

thirty-three:
wednesday evening

Alfredo slurped tomato-basil soup
with the slow appreciation of a patient monk. He let each swallow settle before taking the next.
Three basil leaves floated on top of the hot, creamy slurry. A homemade cheddar scone was ready about the time he had finished half the soup. The next course was a large bowl of gluten-free rigatoni and a simple garlic sauce with chopped zucchini, eggplant, roasted red pepper, and oregano. He would apparently keep eating and drinking as long as she produced food and kept his glass full. His devotion to the task—eating every scone crumb on the plate, leaving the pasta bowl empty except for a glistening sheen of sauce—made her smile inside.

“Full?” Trudy patted her stomach. “¿
Más
?”

“
No más
,” he said with a shake of his head. “
Gracias
.”

“¿
Café
?” she said. She remembered somewhere the Mexican word sounded like the French.

“
No, gracias
,” he said.

She showed him the front bedroom where he would stay, handed him a fresh set of towels and clothes, selected from the small stash of Jerry's stuff that had accumulated over time. The fit was reasonable.

Alfredo nodded.
Sí. Gracias. Comprendo.
His nerves were obvious. He was still unsure. When he walked, he favored his tender ankle, still swollen. The weak foot's sneaker, a brown running shoe, was loosely tied.

Trudy washed his clothes while he showered and by the time she had cleaned the kitchen, Alfredo was lying down on the couch. She poured a shot of tequila from Allison's stash and he smiled at the smell, offered her a toast. He took a polite sip of the India Pale Ale in the brown bottle but it was not to his liking. Five minutes later, his eyes were closed and he fell asleep on the couch.

Trudy steeped a cup of chamomile spearmint tea and took it to the front porch. A late-August shower had stopped, though another might be gathering over the ridge to the west. For now, the air was refreshing. She felt as if she had snatched someone back from the brink of a black hole. She didn't know precisely what the black hole
was
but it wasn't good.
Let them try to come and get him now
, she thought. Let them come and explain who they were, what government organization they belonged to, or claimed to be with, and then they could have a detailed conversation about their legal basis for pulling Alfredo Loya away from his work, family, and home.

The telephone rang and she tip-toed back inside through the living room, as if footsteps would have been louder than the shrill old-school ring.

It was Jerry.

“Checking on you—and Alfredo.”

“Everything's fine,” said Trudy. Alfredo, in fact, hadn't moved an eyelash since he had stretched out on the couch. “All that stress. He's sleeping it off.”

“And his first decent meal in a long time,” said Jerry. “If I know you.”

“He's had some food,” said Trudy. “Are you coming up tonight?”

“Not at the rate I'm going,” said Jerry. “As long as you're okay and as long as you don't think you need me.”

There was a chipper attitude to his voice that didn't seem right.

“You're the one who said they might track Alfredo up here.”

“Is Allison around?” he asked. “Or any of her crew?”

“They should be, I suppose. Maybe working late up at the barn.”

With the long cord on her phone, Trudy could talk and drift into her greenhouse, two steps down off the back of her kitchen. She pinched a dead leaf from a Weeping Fig.

“I'll be up later,” said Jerry. “Now that I think about it. Looks to me like we had a great day, based on how tired everyone looks around here.”

Daily receipt fluctuations. A favorite topic. In his perfect world, every day would be better than the next, a steadily rising line of income and profits like no other business in history.

“I'll button up here and head your way,” said Jerry. “But don't wait
up. Might take a while.”

thirty-four:
wednesday evening

“Turn around,” said Allison.

They had gone a half mile, her tired body clinging to Colin as she sat behind him on Merlin.

“What?” said Colin. He turned to face her as much as he could. She had her arms around his waist. Her chest pressed against his back. He used an old-fashioned western saddle with a low cantle so doubling wasn't too uncomfortable.

“Let's go back,” she said.

Colin's look was to see if she was serious. “You're soaked,” he said.

“We'll build a quick fire, dry these things out.”

“That'll take an hour or two, it's almost dark already.”

“The better to sneak up on them.”

“It's four miles back. You need a shower, real food,” said Colin. “And a beer.”

“The voice of reason,” said Allison. “I'm fine. Now that you're here. Feeling better.”

“What are you going to see?”

Colin sighed, turned back to face forward. Light was on its last legs. A broad meadow around them slipped toward darkness.

Allison thought the answer was obvious but said it anyway: “If I knew, I wouldn't need to go.”

“And what are you going to do?”

Colin's tone was conversational. They could have been discussing a supply list for the hardware store.

“It depends,” said Allison. She tried to match his quiet approach.

“Depends on what?”

“On what's happening when we get there,” said Allison.

“Probably a whole lot of grown men hanging out and, if anything else, hanging out some more. It's already dark in case you hadn't noticed and it's at least two hours back, maybe more since we're doubling up here and can't exactly push Merlin too hard.”

“Okay, then, modified plan is we go most of the way back, find a place to settle in for the night and we'll be there first thing in the morning, when it's light.”

Colin didn't say anything, which was its own form of response.

“I've got one blanket,” said Colin.

“All we need,” said Allison.

“I've got about five or six of Trudy's granola bars.” Her version included cranberries, dates, and apricots. Nutrition bullets.

“I know a pond back off the trail,” said Allison, noting the talk had moved to a
how to make this work
mode.

“Build a fire, dry your clothes, boil some water so we can drink it later. You'd be
nekkid
for a while.” Pronounced it like a hillbilly.

“You could keep me warm,” said Allison. “But only until the clothes are dry.”

The plan was a jolt to her spirits. Going back to mess with the campfire jerks pleased her to the core. A chance for rest, food, and a fire put the situation in an even sweeter spot.

“What about Trudy—or Jesse. Can we call?”

Colin dug into a jacket pocket. “Pulled your phone out of Sunny Boy's saddlebags,” he said.

“You are even smarter than you look,” she said.

Allison flipped open the phone. Low battery, no signal. They were
down in a broad, flat-bottomed valley. Ridges and obstacles stood between them and civilization's mysterious cell grid.

“Jesse knows you're out looking?” said Allison.

“And I told him not to worry until about this time tomorrow,” said Colin.

Which meant that Jesse wouldn't really start to worry for two or three days. He was as stoic and carefree as your average rock and one of the hardest workers she'd ever met.

“The Oklahoma group called again today,” said Colin. “They were out buying supplies and made up some excuse to call. The guy made a crack about whether they should plan on buying an extra freezer for all the meat they would need to store.”

“Another blood-thirsty realist,” said Allison. “My favorite.”

Time was an issue. Allison's only positive thought was her standards for cleanliness and organization were so much higher than the average outfitter that she was ahead of the game based on her own baseline. Few clients would notice an off year. The new clients would think she was average. But wandering into an elk herd and filling a tag or three would make any hunter overlook whether her ship was tidy.

They found a flat spot on the north side of the pond, guarded on two sides by trees. The other two sides appeared open, though it was solely an impression. They picked a spot to sleep with the aid of a flashlight. Colin found a place to lead Merlin to the water and the horse slurped noisily.

“I'm going back,” said Colin.

Allison gave him a look, but he couldn't see it.

“Two hours each way,” said Colin. “Back by 1 or 2, maybe a little later. We need another horse.”

The plan made sense, much as Allison wanted to dispute it. “I'll go with you.”

“You rest up. You need it.” The idea of stretching out, putting her head down, sounded delicious. “I'll leave you everything I've got. Flashlight, matches, blanket.”

It wouldn't be like her to complain about being alone. Going so quickly back to being alone, if only for a few hours, felt too abrupt. But Colin was right.

“Got any fire starter?” said Allison.

“Fresh out,” said Colin. “But you know all the tricks.”

Allison liked to think she could start a bonfire in a driving rainstorm, but every bit of the terrain was dripping wet. They were setting up camp on a soaked sponge.

“Don't need any merit badges,” said Allison. She'd been a Brownie once but after graduating to Girl Scouts had only lasted a year. Something about ranks and mottos and preparing herself through prescribed tasks was unappealing. The checklist approach to conquering the home, the outdoors, and personal improvements didn't sit well. Neither did selling cookies.

“I'm not awarding any today anyway,” said Colin. “No such authority has been vested in this particular cowboy. However, if you complete your task I do have a different sort of reward, depending on your point of view.”

Colin rummaged around in Merlin's saddle bags. Like a magician plucking a fat gold coin from behind a stranger's ear, held up a pint of tequila. He blasted the bottle with the flashlight. Hornitos.

“Okay,” she said. “Now get.”

Allison cracked the bottle and took a swig, passed it back to Colin.

“One for the road,” he said. “Though I shouldn't drink and drive.”

She kissed him hard, touched tequila tongues, and then for a moment let her head rest on his shoulder. Releasing her weight into his grasp was as good as an hour-long massage by a pro.

“Hurry back,” she said. Kissed him again.

Colin climbed up and headed off without another word. He wasn't born to linger.

If all went well, she'd have a fire hot enough to dry clothes within twenty or thirty minutes. Another forty minutes to an hour for the clothes to dry, or close. First thing she'd need was a downed dead aspen. Right under their bark, the wood would stay dry in a hurricane. She followed her flashlight beam back toward the woods, counted steps as she went. Tipped her head back to the sky, rolled her neck around. One faint star winked hello.