stared at the copse of trees by the sign that marked the entrance to the Lost Twin trailhead. My eyes through the goggles stayed steady, but I couldn’t see anything more, just the movement of the limbs and branches.
Something else moved to my left, and I whirled in time to see a shape dart back into the trees where the ridge dropped off into the open, white expanse of the lake.
I quietly dismounted the Cat and stepped onto the surface of the snow, which crunched like cornflakes under the Vibram soles of my Sorels. I thought of the Sharps fastened to the side of the Arctic Cat, but instead slipped the glove from my right hand and unsnapped the safety strap from my. 45, drawing it from the holster and moving toward the small ridge.
I was not seeing any green dots.
I kept looking at the grove of trees to the right but could catch sight of nothing more. By the time I got to the top, I could make out where the wind had struck the rise, lifted its load, and then dropped the snow, flake by flake, in a drift as sharp as the edge of a strop razor.
It was then that something made a noise very close to me. I stood there for a moment and looked around. It was muted and almost like music. I looked down at the ground, but it wasn’t coming from there, it was coming from my coat. I remembered that I had put Saizarbitoria’s cell phone in the inside pocket of the high-tech jacket. I unzipped and pulled out the device, took it from the plastic bag, and looked at the number on the display-Wyoming, but not one I recognized. I flipped it open and used Vic’s patented greeting: “What fresh hell is this?”
There was some fumbling on the other end, and then a strange voice spoke. “What the fuck does that mean, man?”
Great-just what I needed was a wrong number eating up my battery.
“Hey, Sheriff, is that you?”
I stared at the phone and then returned it to my ear. “Hector?”
“Yeah, it’s me; hey, how you doin’?”
“Hector, where are you?”
He laughed. “Where the hell do you think I am? Locked to a water pipe, right where you left me.”
“How did you…?”
“I got a credit card that some tonto left out of the cash register and activated it for some long-distance charges. I’m bad, I’m nationwide. I called my family back in Houston, and then I called my buds down in…”
“How did you get this number?”
“I got it when you gave it to your secretary.”
“Dispatcher.”
“Whatever, man. Hey, aren’t you glad to hear from me?”
“You’re eating up my battery, Hector.” He paused, and I thought for a moment that he’d hung up.
“Hey Sheriff, I wanna get something straight here from the beginning-I’m no snitch, you got me? I mean, where I come from, ratting somebody out is the lowest of the low.” There was another pause, and then he continued. “But you been pretty good to me with the tiger and all, so I figure I owe you something.”
“Okay.”
“Where you’re goin’ and what you’re tryin’ to do-don’t trust nobody. I mean even the people you think you know? Don’t trust ’em. I’m just sayin’. Adios.”
The phone went dead. I hit the disconnect button and shook my head. Just when I didn’t need reception, I got it.
I stared at the hillside that led down to the lakeshore and shifted the goggles further onto my forehead. There was no one there, and no one had been-no prints, no tracks, nothing. What early morning light there was reflected across the lake, making it look like tundra. I shifted to the left to peer through the trees and saw where it was the Thiokol had gone.
I carefully placed the cell phone back in my inside pocket and thought about who I knew up here, and who I trusted.
8
West Tensleep Lake is almost a mile long, large for the high country of the Bighorn Mountains. I was now traveling across it and soon to be in direct violation of the 1964 Wilderness Act and the 1984 designation of the Cloud Peak Wilderness Area; they could ticket me if they could find me.
The center of the lake had been whitewashed, and the surface was a reflective sheen of about sixteen inches of solid ice, easily capable of holding the weight of the Thiokol and the Arctic Cat. They’d traveled to the center of the lake and then continued north to where it tapered into its source.
I slowed the machine as I got to the place where the hillsides rose and narrowed and where the snow grew steadily deeper. The wind had refilled the tracks where the big Spryte had gone, but now there was an uneven surface underneath that would suddenly send the Cat lurching to one side or the other and almost yank the handlebars out of my hands.
Lifting the amber-tinted goggles onto my forehead, I slowed and stared at the terrain ahead-everything had a flat, gray quality. The snow had stopped somewhat; the sun was just up, although behind a thin cloud cover, and I was glad to see its opaque glow, hoping it might lift the mercury above zero and ground some of the blowing snow. Closing my eyes for just a second, I stood there on the running boards of the Cat and soaked in a little of the warmth from the sun. I took a deep breath and thought about the figures I’d seen back at the turnaround and wondered if they might’ve been the ones Hector had warned me about in his phone call. I didn’t allow myself to dwell on the subject for too long.
I could see where Tensleep Creek stretched to the right and then rounded to the left before continuing north. The snow would get deeper, but anywhere the Thiokol could go, I could follow.
I hit the accelerator and carefully picked my way through the miniature pass, getting to another flat and following the creek bed.
I was trying to remember what the area looked like before being smothered in layer after layer of snow, but my last trip had been in the fall two years ago. I had been up the mountain since then on a fishing trip with Henry, but that had been on the Dry Fork near Burgess Junction on the Sheridan side of the mountain.
Originally the Crow called the mountains Basawaxaawuua, or White Mountains, but when Lewis and Clark reported on the vast herds of bighorn sheep at the mouth of the nearby Big Horn River, the range received its modern name, rivers being ever so much more important to explorers than peaks.
Recreation wasn’t my game, and that was probably why I had only a vague memory of having been up here in something other than a crisis situation. I thought there was a boulder field to my right, with scree leading down to the waterline. Better to avoid that; I kept to the left and puttered around the corner.
There was another straightaway, and I could still see where the Thiokol had burst through the drift at the other end. I rose up on the handlebars and floorboards again so that I could see exactly where it had gone. It was at that moment I thought I heard something-something louder than the exhaust on the Cat and not musical. I sat back down, but something felt strange on the saddle. I rose up a little and glanced back at the black seat, where I saw that there was a large rip in the vinyl.
I twisted the bars again in an attempt to track the snow machine to the right and under the lip of the ridge so that I might be protected from whoever was shooting, but another round went through the plastic of one of the front fenders and I lost control. The big red contraption heaved up the steep incline of the hillside like an eight- hundred-pound bronco and casually rolled sideways, landing on top of me.
I scrambled to get out from beneath it before it settled but only succeeded in catching the bottom of the Cordura pant on a peg on the other side. I bent my leg so that it wouldn’t break. The snow was relatively soft underneath, but the ATV’s crossbar struck me in the face and sunk me.
I lay there trying to pull my leg and left arm free, but nothing would budge. I pulled my hat from my head and yanked the goggles down to my neck with my right hand, frantically searching the ridge above to see from where they were firing, but there was only the gray of the clouded, early-morning sky.
Nothing.
If they were making their way to me, I had only a few moments to prepare. The Sharps was still lodged in
