McCain again told her all about how he had tried to figure out who the killer was, which had led him to Stratford’s house on the night before the new moon.
One evening as they were out in the back on the patio at McCain’s house, she asked again about tracking down Stratford and the shot he took. Once again, he went through all the details.
“I guess you really are the rifleman, Luke McCain,” she said.
“Could we please just let that go?” he asked.
She was going to razz him some more, but the doorbell rang.
“Saved by the bell,” she said.
McCain went to the door, and when he opened it an eight-week-old yellow Lab puppy ran through his legs and pounced on Jack. The big yellow dog had been sound asleep on one of the AC vents, and all of a sudden he was a hundred-pound plaything.
“What do we have here?” McCain asked as he saw the smiling face of Austin Meyers standing there.
“That’s Bear,” Austin said. “He’s my new puppy. I named him Bear because I want him to track bears like Jack does. Will you help me train him?”
“You bet I will,” McCain said.
Sinclair came in a second later, and in an instant Bear was wiggling and waggling around her feet. She picked the puppy up and was immediately having her face licked all over by a tiny, pink tongue.
“Oh, you’re the cutest thing I’ve ever seen,” she said.
McCain turned and looked at Jack, who looked like he would rather be anyplace else in the world, and said, “See how she is, boy? What are we, last week’s leftovers?”
Sinclair oohed and ahhed over the little yellow ball of happiness.
McCain went over to his big yellow dog and said, “Just ignore her. That’s just how Oregon Ducks are.”
Sinclair looked at McCain and then at Jack and said, “I’ll get you for that later.”
McCain just smiled as he scratched Jack’s ears and said softly, “I’m looking forward to it.”
Acknowledgments
Thank you to retired Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife police officer Gene Beireis for his insight and guidance in helping to make sure my law enforcement characters were at least somewhat realistic.
Thanks to Jon Gosch for his patience during what must have been a frustrating editing process. I was only an English minor at Washington State University, so I needed a great deal of help.
And, thanks to all my friends who read along as I composed, giving me the belief that my story was actually good enough to be a book. You know who you are.
A Preview
of the next Luke McCain novel,
CASCADE VENGEANCE
In this new mystery, McCain and his yellow Lab, Jack, are asked to help locate a lost hunter. What they discover is dead bodies at an illegal marijuana grow deep in the backcountry. Assisted by FBI agent Sara Sinclair, McCain and Jack investigate what looks to be a vigilante killer taking out workers in the illegal drug trade.
§
Prologue
The first sliver of light was just visible in the east when Shane Wallace parked his Ford Explorer in a pull-off high up on Manastash Ridge. He waited for it to get a bit lighter and then shouldered his pack, marked the spot on his GPS, grabbed his rifle, and headed out for the day.
His plan was to walk up to the top of the ridgeline, and then work down it toward a drainage he had circled on the map. There were a few clear-cuts in the area, and with water nearby, he hoped the area would hold a few deer. During the first couple hours he saw a few deer, but besides a small forked-horn buck, which wasn’t legal to shoot, all he had seen were does and fawns.
He was sitting up against a tree eating a snack mid-morning when he spotted a bigger buck move through a saddle about four hundred yards away. He quickly found the deer in his binoculars and saw that it was definitely legal. The buck had three points on one side of his antlers, and four points on the other. Shane’s heartbeat jumped, and the adrenaline started to flow.
He knew the deer was too far to shoot at with his primitive black-powder rifle, but being new to the sport he wasn’t too sure what to do next. He decided to just sit and watch the deer to see where it headed. The buck slowly worked its way through the saddle, feeding on leaves as it moved along. After a few minutes, it disappeared over the hill.
Wallace made his move. He walked as quickly as he could, trying to make as little noise as possible. As he approached the spot in the saddle where he’d last seen the deer he slowed his pace and searched for the buck. When he finally spotted the deer, he was amazed that it was still at least three hundred yards ahead of him. The animal wasn’t running and showed no indication it knew Wallace was stalking him. But the buck was covering some ground.
Wallace watched the deer for a couple minutes until it disappeared into a dark green patch of vegetation. As soon as the deer was out of sight, he headed that way. When he got to the edge of the dark green foliage, Wallace stopped and looked at the plants a bit closer. He wasn’t a pot smoker, but he knew marijuana when he saw it. What the heck was all this pot doing up here, he wondered to himself. It didn’t take him long to figure out the plants were being grown illegally, and based on what he could see, the pot field was a substantial one.
He had just taken his GPS unit out to mark the spot so he could report it when he was hit with a burning hot punch in the chest. A split-second
