Forged (Gail McCarthy Mystery) (16 page)

"Oh," I said. "Two horses, hmm."

"So what now?" Blue asked.

"Follow them, I guess. See where they went."

On we went. Blue kept his eyes on the ground while I tried to imagine what two horses could possibly mean.

"They came through here at about the same time. One right behind the other, or right next to him, at times," Blue said over his shoulder.

As if, I thought, someone had ridden behind Barbara, or beside her, possibly pointing a gun at her. The image made me shudder; I glanced over my own shoulder quickly. Once again we were in the forest; I felt as if the trees were watching me.

Dim and shadowy, the redwoods stretched high to form a lacy green canopy far above. The under-story was leafy with bay trees and tangled vines, the floor carpeted with trilliums. All lush, almost tropical in exuberant growth, all hushed with the eerie quiet that takes hold in a mature redwood grove.

I could see sunshine through the trees ahead; it looked like another little meadow. Picking up the pace, I hurried forward, almost tripping over Blue when he bent to study the ground.

"Where are you off to in such a hurry?" He smiled up at me.

"Out of the trees." I shivered. "It's cold underneath here, for one thing, and for another, I'm getting the creeps. I feel like the trees have eyes."

"Redwood forests are different, aren't they?" Blue stood up. "Very hushed, like a church."

Then we were out in the sunshine again, surrounded by dusty grass and wild sweet peas. Blue stooped to study the ground and nodded. "The same two horses. So, how long do you want to track them for, Stormy?"

"As long as we can stand it, I guess. I want to know where they went."

On we went. And on. Uphill and downhill, mostly we seemed to be following the coastal ridge. Our trail led steadily northward. Occasional paths branching off to the side caused Blue to bend and examine the dirt, but our two horses stayed on the main trail.

An hour or so later, our trail fed into a dirt road, running east/west. After some study, Blue said, "The horses went east. This looks like the main fire road that crosses Lorene Roberts Park. I used to ride my mountain bike up here."

"I didn't know you were a mountain bike rider."

"That was a few years ago." Blue was headed down the road, his eyes cast down before him.

"Barbara said she ran into some crazy guy on a mountain bike the last time she was riding in here. The day Dominic was killed. She said the guy was worthless as an alibi because no one could find him. She called him Mountain Dave."

Blue laughed; the sound seemed to echo through the quiet woods. "I know Mountain Dave. He's sort of a local legend."

"He is? Who is he?"

"That's hard to say. No one seems to know where he came from or have any more names for him than Mountain Dave. He lives up in this park and rides his mountain bike to get around. Moves his camp all the time; the rangers have never caught him. He knows this whole park like you know your own property. Every once in a while he'll show up at a mountain bike race, what they call cycle cross, and just beat the socks off all the high-end riders. It's pretty funny; the pros will be decked out in fancy cycling duds and riding expensive bikes, and here comes Dave in jeans and a T-shirt on a beat-up old cycle and just cleans their clocks."

"He sounds like quite the character."

"He is that."

"Is he crazy?"

"Oh no," Blue said. "He's an iconoclast."

The fire road proved more difficult as a tracking medium. Blue was forced to stop often. At one point, he stared awhile and then motioned me over. "See that?" he asked.

"What am I looking for?"

Blue pointed to a narrow, patterned line through the dust. "That's a bike track. And if you look, you'll see that it runs right over the track of our smaller-footed horse. So the bike came through after the horse did. It was sometime yesterday, because, as you can see, the dew isn't disturbed. If I had to guess, I'd say the bike might have been fairly close behind our horses, at this point."

On we went. Some time later, Blue stopped again. "Look," he said. "The bike overtook the horses right here. See where it went by. And here," he walked ahead, "the horses came through after the bike. Here's a hoofprint on top of the bike's trail."

"So the bike rider saw Barbara and whoever was with her. At least, we assume it was Barbara."

"That's right. It doesn't look as if the cyclist stopped; there's no track of a foot on the ground, or any break in the line of the tire track. The horses moved over to let the bike by, and whoever the cyclist was, he certainly saw our horsemen."

"Onward," I said wearily. "Let's see where they went."

Blue marched on, pausing from time to time to examine the road. I trudged behind him. The sun climbed steadily through the sky and the air warmed. I took off my sweatshirt and tied it around my waist.

What seemed like miles and hours later, the fire road dipped down into a canyon. Mixed forest here, tanbark oaks and sycamores mingled their palmate leaves with the occasional redwood.

Straight overhead, sun poured down with considerable strength. Little puffs of dust rose with every footfall and the air smelled sweetly of tanbark and pollen.

Sweaty and sore as I was, I still gasped with delight as the creek came into view. "Oh, Blue, look," I said.

Surely no grand estate ever boasted a more beautiful and harmonious water garden. Our road descended in graceful loops to a delicately arched bridge spanning a boulder-strewn stream. The water chattered; pools and rills and little falls arranged themselves in perfect, balanced cadence; ferns and vines wreathed clear eddies of still water. Wild iris and trillium clung to the banks; maples fluttered leaves like waving hands in the cool air.

I stared in bemusement; had the architect of this bridge really planned that gentle arch and the slender railings to resemble Claude Monet's Japanese bridge at Giverny, or was it just a happy bureaucratic accident? I inclined to the latter view, given my experiences of governmental agencies, the state parks department included. But even if the design was orchestrated, no foresight could have predicted just this particular branch above the water, or the mysterious mossy stones that outlined the deep downstream pool. It was a fortuitous chance-Nature's choice-like virtually every happy incident in my own garden.

"Wow." I took a deep breath. "That is really beautiful. And I am really thirsty."

Blue and I hurried forward, both of us scrambling down the trail that led to the water. Blue paused to examine the bank and said, "Our two horses drank here."

"Me, too," I said. "This creek ought to be fine, as far into the woods as we are."

A voice replied, "It won't hurt you. I drink it all the time."

Not Blue's voice. A strange voice, coming from where? I stared wildly around but saw no one.

Blue smiled. I followed his gaze with my own eyes. Under the bridge. A man, sitting cross-legged in the deep shade under the bridge.

"Hi, Dave," Blue said.

SEVENTEEN

Do I know you?" The stranger got to his feet.

"Not really," Blue replied. "My name's Blue Winter. I used to ride bikes. I've seen you around."

Was this really the legendary Mountain Dave? I could see the shape of a bicycle resting near his feet.

The man who emerged from under the bridge looked like no human being I'd ever seen before. He wore only a pair of battered cut-off jeans; torso, legs, and arms were uniformly brown. Muscles bulged under taut skin; sinews and veins were prominent. Long, shiny brown hair was tied back in a ponytail; an equally long, shiny beard streamed down his chest. He was possibly the fittest-looking hermit on the planet.

"I recognize you," he said slowly to Blue. "Big, tall, redheaded guy on a bike."

"That was me," Blue agreed.

Dave smiled, a flash of white teeth framed in dark hair.

"This is Gail McCarthy," Blue added.

"Nice to meet you," I said.

Dave nodded. "What brings you so far into the park?"

"We're tracking some horses," I said.

Dave nodded again. "Uh-huh."

"Have you happened to run across them?" Blue asked.

"When?"

"Yesterday."

"I don't think so." Dave shook his head. "I don't keep much track of time, or days, but I don't think I saw any horses yesterday. You don't see many horses in this park. Against the rules." Again I saw the teeth, white in the dark brown beard.

"I think one of the riders was a woman," I offered, "with short, grayish-blond hair. I don't know about the other one. The woman, her name's Barbara, mentioned you. She knows who you are."

Dave nodded. "I know who she is, too. She rides in here once in a while. Comes from Rider Road."

"That's right. Did you happen to see her out riding last Friday?" I asked.

Dave shrugged. "I couldn't really say. I don't pay a whole lot of attention to what day it is. I've seen her in here not too long ago, but I don't know exactly when."

"Oh," I said.

"A cyclist passed these horses yesterday," Blue said. "Maybe a couple of miles back."

"That was probably John."

"John?" Blue asked.

"Yeah. His name's John. He's a cycle cross nut; he's always training. He rides across the park a lot. Starts down in Aptos and comes out near the summit. His wife picks him up. Not too many people get into this part of the park, but I see John's tracks a lot."

"Skinny, knobby tires?" Blue asked.

"Yep. Cycle cross bike."

"Do you know how to get hold of him?" I asked. "It would be great if we could find out what he saw."

Dave gave me a long, steady look. "Why are you so interested in these horses?"

"Barbara's disappeared," I said. "There's a possibility she's dead."

Dave regarded me for a while, then nodded imperceptibly. "I don't know John's last name, let alone his phone number. But I'll see him again; I always do. If you give me your phone number, I'll ask him to call you." And, to my surprise, he pulled a notepad and a stub of a pencil out of the pocket of his shorts.

Giving him my name and phone number, I asked, "Where are you headed?"

"East, on the fire road. I just came down the back trail from the top of Mount Rosalia." He waved his hand at what looked like a veritable deer track leading up the sidehill.

"Wow," I said. "You came down that on a bike?"

Dave and Blue laughed, almost in unison.

"Dave's a master," Blue said kindly. "I imagine he could come down that trail in his sleep."

I smiled. "If you're going east, would it be too much to ask you to see where these horses went? I have to admit I'm getting tired, and we've got three or four hours' hike ahead of us just to get back to where we started."

Dave considered this a moment. "I can do that," he said at last. "Don't have anything else I need to do. Just ride. I've got your phone number. I'll tell you where they went. Though I might not get around to calling for a day or two."

"That's fine," I said. I was weary to the bone and inexpressibly relieved to have discovered a graceful way of giving up the pursuit. Following Barbara suddenly seemed a lot less important than finding something to eat.

"Thank you." Blue and I got out the words at the same time. "No problem." Dave was already mounting his bike. "I'll be in touch."

And then he was off, his bike clambering up the steep trail to the fire road as if its tires were hooves, propelled by those sinewy, driving legs. In two seconds, he was gone.

"He's amazing," Blue said admiringly. "You should see him ride in a race sometime. There's no one like him. All he does is ride that bike."

"Nice work, if you can get it," I agreed. Bending down, I began scooping and slurping water. Between gulps, I said, "Blue, I'm beat. I know this was my idea and I'm sorry to give up on you, but I don't want to go any farther."

"Hey, Stormy." Blue knelt down beside me. "Not to worry. I'm tired, too. We'll go home."