“What next?” Bognor said.
“We interview anyone who might provide us with information, like that guy who works the floodgates at the dam.”
“Jimmy Clark? Why him?”
“He’s at the river every day, right?”
“He is, but he just sits in that beat-up green pickup of his, tinted windows rolled up in all weather.”
“You ever see him leave that truck?”
“No. He opens the sluice gate before the outfitters arrive and closes it after they take off. Never says a word to anyone.”
“What do we know about him?”
“Not a lot. Works for the Water Department. Been there thirty years. Sad little guy, I hear.”
“You ever ask him if he’s seen anyone suspicious poking around the dam?”
“Ric, when people see the sheriff coming, they clam up.”
“Can you think of anyone who might have a grudge against Marshall?”
“What kind of person are we looking for?”
“Single white males to start with.”
“My jail’s filled with idiots like that every weekend.”
“Let me narrow it down. Anyone with a history of causing trouble for their neighbors.”
“Ric, people up here carry guns, build fences around their property, and keep their shades drawn. You can be damn sure they don’t report their personal grudges to me.”
“This is someone who believes he’s not being treated fairly and has a history of being a pain in the ass.”
“Can you be more specific?”
“A person who doesn’t cut his lawn or threatens deer hunters who stray onto his property. That kind of thing.”
Bognor laughed.
“That narrows it down to about fifty people I’ve been in contact with lately. You got any other hints for me?”
“Because of the way he plans these attacks, I’d say this guy is meticulous and highly organized.”
“God in Christ. I don’t know what we’ll do if we have a maniac loose in these mountains.”
“Don’t panic yet.”
“Why in hell not?”
“Because Marshall may be his only target.”
Bognor turned to look at the woods. “Mind if I ask you something? You’ve got a great job now. There’s no need to be up here anymore, freezing your ass off in a raft, chasing a madman. So why have you come back?”
“I had an accident right before I left here. One of Burton’s guides made a mistake and I nearly drowned. I swore I’d never get in a raft again. Some people believe it shows I wasn’t meant for this work. I guess I’m trying to prove them wrong.”
“You’ll see this investigation through to the end, then.”
“As long as you need me.” Carlyle pulled a bunch of keys from his pocket. “One more thing. You mind if I ask Leo Wells to help me out? If I have to look for this guy in the backcountry, there’s no better person to have around.”
“Go ahead. But make sure Wells stays away from cliffs. The guy has a reckless streak in him.”
Eight
Monday
He woke at 5:00 a.m., threw a log in the woodstove, and made a pot of coffee. He walked back and forth in the semidarkness, the bitter cold clawing at his bones. How was he supposed to have known that Sanders would do something as stupid as stand up in a moving river, and that his goddamn buddies would be too inept to rescue him? The kid’s death was not his fault, but he could not put it out of his mind. Light began to pour in from the single, east-facing window. Those incompetent bastards who worked for Marshall could have saved Blake, too, if they knew what they were doing.
The cabin was small but immaculate. Lining one wall were three bookcases filled with county histories, surveyor’s maps, state law reports, photographs of the region as it existed a century ago, and deeds to properties scattered all over the mountain. An eight-by-ten sleeping loft mounted on four hand-hewn beams hovered over the single room. A cast-iron woodstove and a cane rocker sat in the center of the room. His collection of logging tools, their blades recently honed, stood against the back wall.
He cracked open the front door and stared out at the row of red spruce along the road that guarded his privacy. A two-story, pine-clad barn sat just uphill and to his left. His nearest neighbor, a widow whose husband had died in a mine accident thirty years ago, lived a mile away. Working nights and weekends for two years, his parents had built this cabin halfway up a slope leading to the summit of the mountain. The eighty-foot trees guarding his property were more than a century old. Surrounded on all sides by thick foliage, the house received sunlight only an hour or two either side of noon.
Locals never came near his cabin. Everyone knew he patrolled his property, owned guns, and would enforce the no trespassing signs that he’d posted. No one ever visited the place now that his parents had passed on.
He went inside, threw another log in the stove, and collected his gear. Although he planned to be away from his truck for only five or six hours, his backpack contained everything he would need should he get stranded in the gorge: snowshoes, ten-point crampons, an ice axe, a lightweight GPS unit, fifty yards of high-tensile rope, a tarp, a thermos filled with black coffee, and ten MREs. He wrapped a 10X spotting scope in flannel and placed it in the vest pocket of his parka.
After pulling on a pair of waterproof boots, he hoisted his pack and locked the front door behind him. This conflict with the Marshalls was about more than his family’s grievances. An entire community, people who had carved their dreams from this soil, was at risk. He walked across the yard, chained up his eight-year-old yellow lab, threw his gear in the truck, and drove slowly down the mountain toward Indian Lake.
After twenty minutes on the
