Blood Trail (32 page)

Joe said, “So you made sure she’d be discredited and shamed. You contacted Vern Dunnegan and the sheriff and told them ahead of time she was off her rocker.”

Pope shrugged, held out his hands in a “what else could we do” plea.

Joe didn’t respond.

“What choice did we have?” Pope asked, heatedly. “And even if she sees things differently now than I do, how can anyone justify these murders? She obviously convinced someone—and I think we know who—the five of us were evil men.”

Joe had never seen Pope so desperate, so scared. He could smell his fear in the cab of the truck.

“What bothers me,” Joe said, “is how long you knew about the connection.”

“I wasn’t sure!”

“But you said nothing. You kept it to yourself. My guess is you thought about it for the first time after John Garrett was murdered. Especially when you heard about the poker chip. Am I right? That’s why you shut me down so fast when I brought it up.”

Pope said nothing. Joe took his silence as confirmation.

“And when Warren Tucker was killed, and again there was a poker chip, you
knew
there was a connection. Two of your old friends in a row. Each hunting at the time, each with a poker chip on them. You
knew
.”

Pope stared ahead as if Joe wasn’t speaking.

“That’s what hacks me off so much,” Joe said. “Neither you or Vern Dunnegan did the right thing. You sat there while two men were murdered, leaving behind widows, children, and grandchildren, and you didn’t do a thing because all you could think of was yourselves.”

“I wasn’t
sure
,” Pope said softly.

Joe shook his head. “You can say that now. But you knew. That’s why you were all over this when Frank Urman was butchered. You were just waiting for it. So for the first time in your professional career, you were on the scene. You wanted to be in charge so if we caught the killer you could mitigate the damage to you. And you offered up your buddy Wally Conway to get
him
out of the way so he wouldn’t start talking. You were appeasing the shooter, offering up Wally, hoping that would put a stop to it. But when you saw how Klamath could get to you, could put a severed head in your hotel room, well, you knew it wasn’t over after all. You knew you’d be next no matter what. Am I right so far?”

Pope snorted, as if Joe were amusing him. It wasn’t convincing.

“But more than anything, you were hoping we’d trail the shooter and take him out so nothing would ever get out. Right? That’s why you were there to help spring Nate, right? Because whatever you think of him, you know he’s lethal.”

“Damned right,” Nate said.

“You’re insane,” Pope said. But his shoulders slumped in defeat.

THE TREES closed in around them as they ascended. The sky was gray, the air almost still. Two hours until dark. Joe pulled his truck off a two-track and turned off the motor.

“Recognize this place?” Joe asked Pope.

“Of course,” Pope said, annoyed. “It’s where Frank Urman was found.”

“And where Randy Pope
will
be found,” Joe said.

Pope’s red-rimmed eyes filled with tears.

30

THERE IS
a very specific way to skin an animal so that a taxidermist can create a flawless shoulder mount. It’s called caping. It works best if the animal to be caped is hung up by the back legs.

THE TERRAIN
, of course, is familiar. As I stride—careful to step on exposed rocks and to keep slightly to the side of established and muddy game trails—I weigh the advantage of knowing this mountain and the exact location of my prey against the possibility that I’m being led into a trap. Given the odds and what I know to be true—that the FBI informant has yet to give bad information and that an opportunity like this is too great to disregard—I proceed.

 
 
I CAN’T
shake the feeling I’m being followed. I’ve neither heard nor seen anything to confirm my impression. Several times I stop and stand still, compelling my senses to reach out beyond their capacities to tell me something. The only thing I can point at that supplements my suspicion is the utter quiet—except for a slight breeze in the treetops—that remains in my wake. I’ve learned that after I’ve passed though an area, after a respectful period, the birds and squirrels begin talking to one another again. But I hear no resumption of sounds. It’s as if I’ve shut out all life by being in its presence.

 
 
JOE FELT the presence of the shooter without actually seeing anyone. The hair on the back of his neck rose, and a shiver rolled up the length of his body from his boots to the top of his head.

He was behind the upturned root pan of an enormous fallen pine tree. He could see Pope’s shoulder through an opening in a gnarl of thick roots. He could tell by the way Pope shook that the man was sobbing.

They’d handcuffed Randy Pope behind his back to the same tree Frank Urman had been hung from and made a show of leaving the area. But instead of driving away, Joe snuck back into the tree stand and Nate hiked through the timber to a high granite knob that overlooked the tree stand, the ridge where Urman had originally been killed, and the mountain vista behind it. Both had radios turned low. Joe was armed with his shotgun filled with double-ought buckshot and the .40 Glock on his hip that he had no intention of using. Nate had the scoped .454 Casull.

Joe was thankful for the high breeze, the water sound of the wind in the trees, because it enabled him to communicate in low tones with Nate and remain out of Pope’s hearing range. Joe and Nate had agreed to check in with each other every ten minutes whether they saw anything or not. The procedure they’d agreed on was a click on the transmitter button, followed by a murmured check-in. Murmurs tended to meld with nature sounds better than whispers. Joe didn’t want Pope to know he was there and start begging and crying louder.

Joe wished Pope would stop crying. It made Joe feel cruel and awful, and he tried to shut Pope’s suffering out. But his effort was in vain. Despite the things Pope had done and not done to exacerbate the crimes committed, Joe couldn’t help but have sympathy for the man he’d handcuffed and offered up to the killer. Even Pope was a human being, although a diabolical and deeply flawed example of one. He didn’t know how long he could let this go on before he rose and dug in his pocket for the key to the cuffs.

But the feeling of the presence shoved his feelings aside. He raised his binoculars to his eyes and focused on the ridge across the meadow.

As he did, Nate clicked on the handheld.

Joe momentarily ignored the chirp and focused his binoculars on the top of the ridge and saw a slight movement. It was quick: the dull glint of a gun barrel behind a knuckle of rock.

Nate said, “I’ve got a visual.”

Joe pulled up the handheld from where it hung around his neck on a lanyard, said softly, “Me too.”

Nate said, “He just came out of the timber and he’s walking across the side of a meadow headed in your direction. Looks like he’s got a rifle. ETA is ten minutes.”

Joe was confused, and leaned into the binoculars. He could see no further movement, and certainly no one walking toward him.

“Nate, where do you see him?”

“To the east, about a mile from you. It’s Klamath Moore coming your way.”

Joe felt his chest clutch. Then who was up there on the ridge?

 
 
SHERIFF MCLANAHAN was exhausted. He stopped every ten to fifteen minutes to rest, falling farther behind his team of volunteers who were on foot, spread through the timber up ahead of him, sweeping the mountainside. He decided that as of tomorrow he would either suspend the investigation or at least not participate in the physical part of it. He was getting too damned old and out of shape for this, he thought. Besides, despite the enthusiasm from his boys for camping out, hiking in the woods with guns, and the horseplay in the camp at night, they hadn’t found a damned thing and the shooter was still at large. McLanahan doubted the shooter was even in the state anymore.

So when his radio crackled, he was in no hurry to reach for it.

“I just cut a fresh track,” someone said. McLanahan recognized the voice of Chris Urman.

“Where are you at?” It was Deputy Reed.

“Right here. See me? I’m waving my arm.”

“Oh, okay. On my way.”

“Oh shit,” Urman said. “I see somebody up ahead. On the game trail.”

A pause. McLanahan felt a trill and reached down for his radio as Reed came on, his voice excited: “I see him! I see him!”

The sheriff said, “Stay calm, boys, I’m on my way. Don’t lose sight of him.”

McLanahan holstered the radio, took a deep breath, and began to jog up the hill, his gear slapping him as it bounced.

NATE ROMANOWSKI peered through the scope of the .454, surprised that Klamath Moore was in the open. Moore skirted a small meadow, a break in the timber, the wall of dark pine on his left. Nate could see him clearly. Yes, Klamath had a rifle slung over his back. He appeared to be tracking someone because his head was down, not up. As Nate watched, Klamath unslung his rifle and held it in front of him at parade rest as he walked.

In Nate’s peripheral vision there was a dull flash of clothing through the timber to the side of where Klamath was in the meadow. Nate quickly swung the .454 away from Klamath into the trees. Through branches and breaks in the timber, Nate saw the heads and shoulders of several men moving toward Klamath. Nate frowned and brought his radio up to his mouth when he recognized McLanahan’s heavy-bodied gait and familiar battered cowboy hat.

Klamath Moore suddenly froze and turned toward the rushing group of men, and a beat later Nate heard a shout—the reason Klamath had wheeled.

Nate almost cried out as Klamath raised his weapon, pointing it at the men in the trees, when a crackling volley of shots punched through the air and Klamath collapsed in the grass.

Nate keyed the mike. “Jesus—they shot him. Klamath Moore is down! It’s McLanahan and his guys.”

Four men, led by Chris Urman, appeared in the meadow, cautiously circling Klamath Moore’s body.

“Joe,” Nate said, “they got him. He’s down and he looks deader than hell from here.”

Nate lowered his weapon. He could see McLanahan clearly now, wheezing his way across the meadow toward the body of Klamath Moore, who was surrounded by Chris Urman and other volunteers. Somebody whooped.

Nate said, “Joe? Did you hear me?”

He heard Joe’s voice, tight and forced. “I heard you.”

“Are you okay?”

“No.”

“What’s happening?”

“The shooter is coming down the hill toward Pope.”

Nate looked at his radio for a second, then shook it. “Come again?”

“Oh my God,” Joe Pickett said.
“No.”

 
 
THE SHOTS
in the woods behind me sent a bolt of fear up my spine. So many shots, so quickly. I drop to a knee and thumb the safety off my rifle, anticipating more fire that doesn’t come. Who was it—hunters? The number of shots reminds me of when a group of hunters come upon a herd of elk—that furious fire as the herd breaks and runs. Is it possible there are hunters up here despite the moratorium? And if so, why didn’t I see their camp or cross their tracks?