“You guys up there?” officer Rachette said in the far distance. He followed with a loud whistle.
“Yeah! Up here!” He hurried to Connell’s Glock 22, removed the magazine and pulled back the slide, ejecting the chambered round. He threw the Rocky Points Police issue Glock 22 off the cliff with the full force of his arm, and reared back and tossed the magazine well into the pines beyond Connell’s unconscious body.
Bugs in the surrounding trees ramped up their hissing, the worst of the commotion already forgotten in their tiny memories. A bird flapped past him and coasted out over the expanse — over the immense drop that lay before him.
The air was hot and still. A chipmunk cackled somewhere up the gradual slope in the pines behind him. Sweat trickled down his temples, down his neck and onto his shirt collar. He tasted coppery blood in his mouth.
Wolf inhaled deep and walked back to the edge. His body was humming, his movements fuzzy, body saturated with adrenaline.
Looking over the edge, he finally saw what he knew he would see minutes ago. His mind pictured the teenager slipping up top, tumbling off the edge, deafening wind rushing through his ears, and the slam into the scree field below.
He jerked back, stepped away from the edge and looked back to Connell’s inert form. He still hadn’t moved. Wolf shook his head and rubbed a split on the inside of his cheek with his tongue. He walked twenty feet into the trees and spit blood into a bush, well away from the potential crime scene.
“Hey what’s up?” Rachette scrambled up into view.
“Found Jerry Wheatman,” Wolf answered, walking back to the ledge.
“What? You did?”
Wolf pointed down with a somber look.
“Oh man.” Rachette exhaled staring over the cliff. “Jesus,” he pulled back from the edge, apparently letting his mind race through the same morbid hallucination.
“I noticed this here,” Wolf said in a surprisingly calm voice pointing behind Rachette in the rocky soil near a thick Ponderosa Pine trunk.
“This?” Rachette pointed at the dark soil covered with bright green metallic flies. They burst into a buzzing cloud as he tried shooing them away.
“Yeah. I think it’s vomit,” Wolf said. “You can see the chunks of stuff. Not much left, but some left still.”
“It’s puke? You think?”
“Yeah,” he said. “I do.”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right. Okay, so what does that mean?”
“Well, what’s in that vomit would you say?”
“I don’t know.”
“Looks like an overall yellow color. Looks like a ham and egg breakfast to me. All yellow from the yellow yolks of the eggs? Here’s some pink ham chunks,” Wolf pointed.
“Yeah, okay. Yeah it does look like that.” Rachette said. “So, what does that mean?”
“I don’t know. Obviously this person had last eaten breakfast. Maybe in town. Maybe someone freaked out up here after seeing Wheatman fall off the edge. Puked his guts out and ran. Or maybe he puked his guts out after pushing Wheatman off the edge.”
“You think he was pushed?” Rachette turned, expelling a hefty black dollop of chew spit.
“I think it’s possible.” Wolf looked into the trees at Connell who still lay motionless. “There’s not much to go by right here with the granite rock. I can’t get an indication of struggle or not. But there were two others with him. I could see a lot of signs on the way up. Looked like a girl and a boy by the shoe prints at least.”
Wolf walked to the edge and looked over again.
“Jesus, what happened to you?” Rachette was looking Wolf up and down.
Wolf looked down at his uniform, dust powdered the whole left side of his body. A scrape on his elbow was draining blood down the length of his arm to his fingers, and his other elbow was covered in blood, not his own blood. His dark brown Carhartts were scuffed with dirt, a clump of burrs was velcroed to his leg.
“Oh, yeah, that,” He slapped the dirt off his pants. “Give me your handkerchief, will ya?”
Rachette gave him his ever present handkerchief from his rear pocket, and Wolf wiped the blood off his arm.
“Sorry, I’ll buy you another one at Sheps.”
“What the hell happened?” Rachette suddenly went wide eyed, then looked again over the ledge, then back to Wolf. “Where’s Connell?”
Wolf huffed and nodded towards the trees. Rachette took a second to find Connell’s form amongst the sparse underbrush.
“What the…” He swiveled his head back and forth. “Is that Connell’s blood?” He finally settled his eyes on Wolf’s forehead.
Wolf wiped his head, putting another dark spot on the handkerchief.
“Yeah. I think that’s from the head butt to his nose. He’s going to need some medical attention, but I suspect he’ll be able to walk his own ass down the mountain soon. I don’t know. Maybe not.”
Rachette unloaded a bit spit on the rock and laughed, “Whoa-lly crap! You gotta tell me what happened!”
“Hey, watch what you’re doing, don’t spit anymore. We’re treating this a crime scene. Connell and I already messed it up enough, no sense making it worse. And don’t worry about what happened here. He deserved it, that’s all you need to know for now,” he said, contemplating whether he should come out with it. “I don’t know what the heck happened, other than he started it, and I finished it.”
“Sorry boss.”
Rachette wiped his mouth and stepped into the trees.
“Who else is on their way up? Are Wilson and Blaine coming?”
Rachette was already halfway to Connell, “Yep, they’re right behind me!” He let out a long whistle as he looked down on Connell’s inert muscle bound form, “Yeah, that’s a broken nose… Hey Connell! Wow, he’s out.”
Officer Wilson clamored up the trail into view.
Wolf stepped towards the ledge again. “Alright, Rachette, you’re with me, we’re heading down. Wilson, come here.”
They all took another look over the cliff edge.
Wilson approached wheezing hard, and peeked over at the body below. “Good lord. That him?” He turned quickly away from the cliff and walked towards the pines.
Wolf grabbed his radio and checked its functionality. It was scoured deeply and dusted with dirt, but static emitted from the speaker as he pushed the button.
“All right everyone, we’ve found our victim, appears DOA, but we’ve gotta move fast in case he’s still got vitals. We need everyone moving with full medical north on the West Base Loop. He’s at the base of Skipper Cliff. We also have an officer in need of medical assistance on top of the cliff. Officer is unconscious, may need to be evac’ed off the mountain. We need to move fast. Storms are going to be popping up this afternoon. It’s going to be a lot of rain and lightning. Let’s move fast guys.” He put his radio back on his belt.
A cacophony of affirmative radio calls barked through all their radios. Wilson had hiked up, staring dumbly down at Connell, who’s forearm was now raised up lying against his forehead. He had come to and was starting to move around.
“Wilson, make sure he gets attention, make sure the guys on the West Base Loop trail find where they need to go down at the base of this cliff. We’ll have Blaine join you. Where is he?”
“Uh, he should be right here. He was behind me.”
“Let’s go,” he nodded at Rachette walking away from the cliff top and back down the trail. He stopped suddenly, “Give me one of those.”
Rachette dug in his back pocket and pulled his can of snuff out with a smirk, “I thought you were quitting?”
Wolf took a pinch and threw the can back. “Yeah, not today.”
