Free Fire

of the park gateway cities and the most arriving flights.

When the last shafts of the sun hit the SUV just right she could see two people in it. Men. She recognized neither of them by profile, but noticed the driver had his head tilted up and to the right as he drove. He was watching her approach in the rearview mirror. She wished she could see his eyes or part of his face but the glass was too dark.

She slowed to maintain a cushion of a hundred feet and plucked the mike from its cradle on the dash. She tried to speak calmly.

“Dispatch, this is YP-twenty-nine, requesting backup. I’m in visual contact with a black SUV that matches the description of the vehicle reported yesterday near Biscuit Basin. I think it’s the same one we issued the BOLO for yesterday. Repeat: requestingbackup. I’m northbound to Mammoth at Swan Lake. I’d like to pull it over and see who’s inside.”

“Roger that,” the dispatcher said. “Backup is on the way.”

“ETA?”

“Five minutes.”

She let out a long breath in relief. Five minutes was good. Because of the distances in the park and two-lane traffic, it wasn’t unusual to receive ETAs of fifteen and twenty minutes. She eased the cruiser ahead, narrowing the space between them to fifty feet, sending a signal. There would be no doubt now to the driver of the SUV that he was being pursued.

Trying not to make rapid movements, she reached up and unsnapped the buckle of the twelve-gauge pump mounted on the console. For reassurance, she patted her handgun on her belt, rubbed the leather of the holster with her thumb. Then unsnappedit for quick access.

As the two vehicles slowed to round a corner, she looked ahead on the highway as far as she could see for headlights, assumingthat her backup would arrive head-on, dispatched from Mammoth itself. The highway was clear.

She was both pleased and surprised when an NPS Crown Vic cruiser appeared suddenly in her rearview mirror. The backup had arrived much sooner than she anticipated, and she was now ready.

Snapping the toggle for the wigwag lights on the roof light bar, she said, “Let’s see who you are.”

Behind her, the backup cruiser did the same, flooding the insideof her car with explosions of blue and red.

The black SUV continued on, without speeding up or slowingdown. After thirty seconds, she began to worry. Of course, it had happened before. Citizens who were straining to look for wildlife or simply unaware of their surroundings sometimes claimed they hadn’t seen her behind them. But she knew the driver had been watching.

As she reached up to whoop the siren, the brake lights flashed on the SUV and it slowed. She did the same, closing to within twenty yards. Finally, the vehicle swung into a pavement pullout. The driver was courteous enough to park at the far end of the pullout, leaving enough space for both NPS cruisers to park off the road.

“Okay, then,” Demming said to herself. She was trained to emerge slowly, keeping part of her body in the cruiser in case the driver ahead decided to gun his engine and make a run. She paused, as trained, behind her open door while she fitted her hat on. The parking lights lit on the SUV, a good sign. The tailpipe burbled with exhaust, meaning the driver hadn’t killed the motor.Not such a good sign.

At once, the driver and passenger doors opened and a man swung out of each.

“Get back in the vehicle,” she said, surprising herself with the force of her command.

The driver wore glasses and had silver hair and an owlish look on his face. He was tall, probably mid-fifties, dressed in jeans, a white shirt, and a blazer. He didn’t look like a man on vacation. The passenger was shorter, with a smaller build and an eager, boyish face and dark, darting eyes. He looked vaguely familiar and seemed to know it by the way he avoided her.

Then things happened rapidly, but with absolute, terrifying clarity.

The driver turned and reached for his door handle, but the passenger didn’t. Instead, he fixed his gaze on Demming’s backup, behind her and to her left. Demming fought the urge to look over her shoulder, but she did when the passenger seemed to signal something to her backup with an almost imperceptible nod of his head.

They knew each other.

Demming snapped a glance over her left shoulder, saw the ranger she recognized with a gun leveled on her- not his serviceweapon but a cheap throw-down-heard the sharp pop, and felt as if she’d been hit in the ribs with a sledgehammer. She didn’t feel her legs give out but knew they had when all she could see were the dull black glints of obsidian chips in the pavement inches from her face. A flash of white-her hand- on the cold asphalt, scuttling across her vision like a crab for the weapon she’d dropped when she was hit. Where was it?

“Again,” the passenger said. His voice was clear.

Demming turned her head to see the black hole of the muzzleof the weapon two feet from her face and the coldly determinedlook on the face of the shooter. She wanted to ask, “Why you?” Closing her eyes tightly, she clearly saw Jake and Erin at home, watching the clock, waiting for dinner.

PART FIVE

National parks are the best idea we ever had. Absolutely American, absolutely democratic, they reflect us at our best rather than our worst.

— Wallace Stegner, 1983

23

Thirty-five minutes later, a caravan of law enforcement vehicles and the EMT van coursed through Mammothwith lights flashing, sirens on, turning the quiet night into a riot of outrage, angry colors, and grating sound. Joe stepped outside his cabin into darkness to see what was going on. The few other visitors in the cabins were doing the same, either parting curtains or opening their doors.

The caravan blasted through the village and down the hill towardGardiner, leaving a vacuum in its wake. It took five minutesbefore he could no longer see the lights flashing on the sagebrush hillside of the canyon or hear the scream of sirens.

Given the inordinate number of emergency vehicles and their display of lights and sound and the dearth of visitors remainingin the park, Joe immediately thought something bad had happened to a ranger-maybe his ranger-and a chill shot through him.

He jogged to a pay phone near the utility building, called Demming’s home. Erin answered crying.

“My mom’s been shot!” she sobbed. “Somebody called for Dad and said my mom’s been shot.”

“Is she still alive?” Joe asked, his head swimming.

“I don’t know, I don’t know. .”

“Erin, stay calm,” he said, not feeling very calm himself. “Let’s not get upset until we know how badly she’s hurt. Don’t assume the worst. People get shot all the time and live through it.”

His words seemed to help, even though he felt like he was lying.

The tiny clinic in Gardiner was popping with activity when Joe arrived. NPS cruisers and SUVs filled the parking lot, and the EMT van that had delivered Demming was parked underthe EMERGENCY entrance overhang, doors still open.

Ashby, Layborn, and a half-dozen rangers Joe didn’t recognizecrowded the small lobby. Layborn was in full