“Which means,” Lothar said, “we have a good chance of finding a footprint. If the shooter was dragging the body, he was setting his feet hard into the ground to pull. Urman wasn’t a small man, so it would have been hard work. Even though the ground is hard and dry, he might have made a footprint we can find because he was stepping down with so much effort in order to drag the body along.”
Joe nodded.
“I’ve got a question for you,” Lothar said. “You mentioned that far hillside would be a good place to hunt because one can see so well from there.”
“Yup.”
“If it were you, where would you set up to look for elk? Where specifically?”
Joe studied the slope, fixing on the granite outcroppings. Several were too low down to provide a good field of vision into the valley. But there was one outcropping toward the top of the slope that not only offered a hunter enough cover to hide behind, but was high enough up the slope to see well into the valley below. Joe pointed at it. “There.”
THE SPLASH of blood on the granite was dark, almost black. It was puncture-wound blood, entry-wound blood. A few feet away on the rock was a spray of bright red arterial blood where the bullet exited Frank Urman’s body and tumbled somewhere down the saddle slope. From where Joe stood above the outcropping, he could visualize a herd of elk grazing on in the meadows below, downslope.
“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
