The Hunt

Pancake batter. Three bottles of maple syrup. Two Milky Way candy bars, frozen, in the ice compartment.

“That’s one of those new candies,” Dowd said. “Never tried one before.”

“Never realized Trexler had such a sweet tooth,” said Lancey.

“How about this,” Dowd said as he opened the cupboard door. They looked in. There was a case of French champagne on the floor.

“Candy bars and French champagne,” Dowd said with a shrug. “Got weird eatin’ habits. Still don’t make him a mass murderer.”

Dryman came into the kitchen from the bathroom and winked to Keegan.

“Let’s get on up to Kramer’s cabin,” Keegan said.

It took almost forty-five minutes to get to the top. Dowd got out of the truck and lit a cigar. They were on a broad flat almost at the crest of the mountain. The cabin stood near the edge of a cliff overlooking the valley. Behind it was a large meadow with a lake in its center ringed with stubby pine trees. Beyond the trees, the land fell away again. Below them on three sides a deep valley carved its way through the mountains, leaving deep gorges in its wake. The snow covered many of its traps—the potholes, ice slicks and fallen trees—but even cloaked in new snow, the terrain itself looked awesome and dangerous. It was a stunning sight, this tabletop poised on the edge of the valley. The sheriff nodded toward the gorge.

“I was a fair skier in my younger days,” Dowd said. “Grew up here. Hell, I was born not fifty miles away. In my best day and in bright sunlight I wouldn’t think of trying a run like that. And you think your man did in that storm?”

He shook his head and hefted his way through the knee- deep snow toward the cabin. Keegan stared at the brutal vista. Is it possible he actually made it out of here? Doubts began to creep into his theory.

The cabin was barren. The radio had been shut down and unplugged, which was standard procedure. Kramer’s pack and skis were gone. The refrigerator was empty.

Lancey shook his head. “There’s nothing out of the ordinary here, Mr. Keegan. Kramer cleaned the icebox out, shut down the radio. Uh, he took a couple of his big sectionals, but you know, maybe he thought he’d need ‘em.”

“Sectionals?”

“Large-scale maps like the one down in my office.”

“Hmm,” Keegan answered.

Lancey went into the radio room and swung the telescope around toward a high peak to the west. He squinted into the eyepiece.

“That’s Snowmass, the big fella,” he said. “A fourteen- thousand-footer. Copperhead Ridge is on the side of her. Come take a look.”

Keegan peered through the scope at a snowbound cabin tucked against the side of the mountain. He watched it for several minutes. It was obviously deserted.

The sheriff entered the glass-enclosed room. “No car around,” he offered.

Dryman snooped around outside the cabin. On the corner of the building he found the stub of the phone line. He kicked around in the snow and finally found the other section of the line. He went back into the cabin.

“Kee?”

“Yeah?”

“Phone line’s cut. Outside going into the house.”

Keegan shook his head. “Okay, the phone line’s cut, radio’s shut down. Kramer’s pack’s gone. And his maps . .

“Hold on, the wind could have snapped the line,” said Dowd. “Naturally Kramer took his pack and shut off the radio. And anybody’d take maps with them if they were heading out in that storm.”

“Uh huh,” said Keegan. “Come with me a minute.”

He led them back outside and waded through the heavy snow to the edge of the frozen lake.

“First of all, we know he came up here,” Keegan said. “He didn’t turn down to the main highway, we got his tracks. Second, he didn’t come back down. We were down there in the storm horsing with that Jeep until dark. By that time nobody could’ve gotten through. So, why did he come up here? And the biggest question—where’s his car?”

Dowd stared at him, his breath misting around his mouth. He looked around as Keegan walked gingerly out on the ice, bouncing cautiously on the frozen pond. He stared out across it, knelt down and squinted across the surface. It was covered with several inches of wind-rippled snow, its banks outlined by drifts.

“My guess is, Trexler’s car’s in here. And Soapie Kramer’s probably in the trunk.”

“Why the lake?” Dowd asked.

“Where else around here could you hide an automobile?” Keegan looked out over the wide outline of the lake. “If he ran it off a cliff it would be too easy to spot. But this lake? Hell, it’ll be frozen over for months.” He paused a moment, then added:

“Besides, the son of a bitch is partial to water.”

“So your theory is he’s out there somewhere?” Dowd said, nodding toward the ragged snowbound mountains.

“Yep.”