Blood Trail

way at that moment. I thought of their wives, their daughters, assumed they were having the same thoughts.

Randy Pope was there. He looked at me and then back toward the fire with a dismissive nod, as if I disgusted him. “If you say anything about this to anyone,” he said in words I can still hear clearly, “we’ll destroy you. You’ll end up as just another grease spot.”

That’s when I decided to find the sheriff and press charges.

AT THIS RANGE, Joe knew, a blast from his shotgun would practically cut her in half. But he couldn’t conceive of it—he didn’t want to fire. Hell, he admired her. He wanted her to turn or look behind her back up the hill so he could stand and shout at her to drop the rifle. As it was, with her finger tightening on the trigger, his sudden appearance could cause her to fire out of fear or reaction. And he thought, Would that be so bad?

“Please,” Randy Pope cried, “please don’t do this. You don’t have to do this.”

“Yes I do,” she said.

“No. Please. You know what happened in that camp. None of us hurt you. Nobody forced you.”

She said, “Actually, I don’t remember very much about that night. It’s still in a fog of alcohol to me. But I do remember how you wouldn’t look at me, how you threatened me. And I remember going to jail. I remember what was said about me afterward.”

“It was years ago,” Pope said. “We’re all different now.”

She laughed bitterly. “I have one more poker chip. Then it will all be over. You know, I carried those five poker chips in my pocket for years as a reminder to me of what you did and what I was. But I’m not like that anymore, and killing you kills what I was back then. I want my dignity back, and you’re the last man in my way. I have a daughter now, you know. I don’t want her to know about me then, or about you. She deserves better than both of us.”

Pope moaned a long moan, and Joe felt the pain of it.

“I’ve fought through self-loathing before,” she said. “This is how I cut the head off that snake.”

Before pulling the trigger, Shenandoah took a second to glance over her shoulder in the direction where the shots had been fired, to make sure no one was on the ridge.

Which gave Joe the opportunity to shout, “Drop the rifle, Shenandoah! Drop it now! ”

He rose so she could see him behind the root pan. His shotgun was trained on her chest. She’d lowered the rifle when she turned and it stayed low.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” Joe said. “Just let the rifle fall out of your hands and step back.”

She looked at Joe, surprised but not desperate. The look of single-minded determination was still on her face.

“This is over,” he said. “Please. You don’t want your daughter to be without her mother.”

He didn’t say, or her father.

Pope, for once, kept his mouth shut.

“I don’t want to go to prison,” she said softly.

“You may not have to,” Joe lied. “Lord knows you’ve got your reasons. Yours is a sympathetic case. This man assaulted you and then destroyed your reputation. Randy Pope will get what he deserves.”

She nodded as if acknowledging Joe’s words but discounting their meaning.

He hated himself.

“Just relax your hands, let the rifle drop.”

She did and it thumped onto the grass. Joe kept his shotgun on her as he walked around the root pan.

“Do you have any other weapons?” he asked.

She shook her head, then said, “I’ve got a skinning knife. I was going to cape him.”

“Don’t tell me that,” Joe said. “Now, ease out of your backpack and toss the knife aside.”

She slipped out of her pack and let it drop, then drew the knife from the sheath and tossed it a few feet away.

“Unlock me,” Pope said out of the side of his mouth as Joe passed the tree.

“Shut up,” Joe said. To Shenandoah, “Put your wrists together. You’re under arrest. I’ve got to take you in so we can sort this all out.”

He chose not to cuff her behind her back and humiliate her further. He slipped hard plastic Flex-Cuffs over her thin wrists and pulled them tight. She was small, almost delicate.

“I don’t want anyone to see me like this,” she said.

“Alisha doesn’t know, does she?”

“No.”

“You killed my friend Robey.”

“For that I’m eternally sorry,” she said, her eyes leaving Pope for a moment and softening. “That wasn’t meant to happen. It was an accident, and I’m so sorry.”

“Did Klamath kill Bill Gordon, or was that you?”