Free Fire Page 24

  After watching them for a half-hour, he soaked his fleece vest in the hot pot and extinguished them.

  “Way cool,” he said aloud.

  JOE RETURNED TO the Mammoth Hotel to wait for Demming and to make arrangements at the front desk for a cabin for Marybeth and the girls the next night. He didn’t want to subject them to rooms in the empty hotel that even he found lonely. He used his credit card, knowing the state would likely not reimburse the cost, and wondered as Simon ran it when exactly his first new paycheck would arrive.

  When Simon returned his card and said he could pick up the keys in the morning, he said, “There have been a couple of older gentlemen asking for you. I hope you don’t mind, but I asked them to wait outside the lobby for you to return.”

  “Wait outside? Why?”

  Simon looked apologetic.

  Joe got it. “They were stinking drunk, right?” he said with despair.

  “Beyond stinking,” Simon said. “They reeked. And one of them had a little accident on the couch. He dropped his bottle of cheap whiskey.”

  Joe turned to see that the cushions on the overstuffed couch near the fireplace had been removed.

  “Son!” George Pickett shouted as he staggered into the lobby from outside. “Son! My boy! Fruit of my loins!”

  Doomsayer remained outside so he could throw up on the sidewalk.

  Joe angrily intercepted his father. “What do you want?”

  “To see my boy. Do you know how good it makes me feel to say I’m going to visit my son? Is there something wrong with that?”

  His father hadn’t shaved or changed clothes since he’d seen him at Old Faithful, as if their meeting had been the catalyst for the bender he was on. He stunk of whiskey and something rotten he’d eaten. His eyes shone with a giddy brand of happiness that bordered on the manic. His smile was forced, and as he stumbled, Joe reached out to hold him up.

  “We have nothing to talk about,” Joe said.

  “But you’re my son!” George said loudly. “The only one I have left.”

  Joe glanced over his shoulder to see Simon look away discreetly.

  “You can’t just stand here and yell,” Joe said. “You’re sure as hell not driving anywhere. Don’t you have someplace to stay?”

  “With you!” George slurred. “We can bunk with you! We can stay up late and tell stories and catch up. That meeting we had, that was no good. We need a new start.”

  Joe felt like smacking him, and instantly felt guilty for even thinking it. He was his father, wasn’t he? But he was so much less than that, even though he’d come to Mammoth to see him.

  Joe handed George the keys to room 231.

  “DON’T WRECK IT,” Joe said, getting both men into the room.

  “You aren’t staying with us?” Doomsayer asked.

  “Never,” Joe said. “And get out tomorrow when you two can walk.”

  “Ah, tomorrow,” Doomsayer said, watching George stagger toward the bed and collapse into the middle of it. “We don’t speak of tomorrow up here. It may never come.”

  IN THE CABIN he had rented, Joe sat at a small table and surveyed the accommodations. It would do, although it was dark and close. He’d hoped there would be a private bedroom for him and Marybeth. He missed his wife, and recalled their last moments together by the fireplace. Instead, there was a double bed and two singles in a long room. Maybe they could send Sheridan and Lucy out for some ice or something, he thought.

  He hoped George Pickett would do as he was told and be out of the area by morning, when his family was due to arrive.

  Tossing his bags into the small closet, he wondered when Demming would get back. He’d need to leave a note at the hotel about his new location.

  And speaking of location, Joe thought, where in the hell was Nate?

  22

  WITH ELECTRIC PEAK TO THE NORTHWEST, BUNSEN Peak to the east, and Swan Lake ahead on her left, Demming’s tires sang on the thin strip of roadway across the meadow with the peculiar, discordant note that came from the chips of sharp black obsidian that had been mixed into the asphalt by a long-ago road crew that probably included her husband, Lars. It was twilight, twenty minutes from Mammoth and home. She was headed north; it was an hour past the end of her shift but she wouldn’t claim the overtime because she didn’t want to explain to anyone why she was running late.

  Her laptop was on the seat next to her in the cruiser, filled with downloaded videotapes from the West and North entrance gates. She hoped Joe had been as successful.

  Because she was driving the only car on the road, she goosed up her speed to fifty, five miles over the park speed limit. The brilliant flashes of white on the leaden surface of the lake ahead were, in fact, trumpeter swans. Thus, Swan Lake. She’d be good at interpretation, she thought. She noticed things.

  Like the black SUV with the smoked windows ahead of her. It was headed north also, and she could feel her heart race as she slowly closed the gap between them. She hadn’t seen where the SUV came onto the road, and could only assume the driver had seen her because he was careful to keep to the speed limit as she neared.

  There was no way to determine if this was the black SUV she had seen the day before, other than the fact that the hairs on her forearm and the back of her neck were standing up. She got closer.

  Wyoming plates, County 22. Jackson Hole. On closer inspection she could see a sticker on the back window from Hertz. A rental. So the driver could be from anywhere and likely chose Jackson since it had the biggest airport 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: requesting backup. 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 unsnapped it 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, assuming that 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 inside of her car with explosions of blue and red.

  The black SUV continued on, without speeding up or slowing down. 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 service weapon 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 muzzle of the weapon two feet from her face and the coldly determined look 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 Mammoth with 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 toward Gardiner, leaving a vacuum in its wake. It took five minutes before 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 remaining in 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 under the EMERGENCY entrance overhang, doors still open.

  Ashby, Layborn, and a half-dozen rangers Joe didn’t recognize crowded the small lobby. Layborn was in full dress, Ashby in sweats and running shoes, his hair wild, as if he’d just been called from a run or a workout.

  “Is it true?” Joe asked.

  “Damn right,” Ashby said. “They found her on the road next to her car. At least two gunshot wounds, maybe more. We don’t know yet.”

  “Is she alive?”

  Ashby nodded. “Slight pulse, I guess. But her breathing was so shallow the first on the scene thought she was dead.”

  “Who was the first on the scene?”

  Ashby nodded toward Layborn, who had been watching Ashby and Joe with obvious interest.

  “Who did it?” Joe asked Layborn.

  The ranger shrugged, said, “Last we know, she called for backup to pull over a black SUV matching the description of the vehicle you saw yesterday. I was on my way but by the time I got there she was already down. I never saw the other vehicle. We found a weapon, though, a thirty-eight tossed on the pavement. We’ve sent it to ballistics and should get some prints.”

  Joe shook his head. “If you found it that easily it’s probably a throw-down. My guess is it’ll turn out clean and untraceable.”

  Layborn and Ashby exchanged looks. Ashby said, “That’s what I’d guess too.”

  “Man oh man,” Joe said, running his fingers through his hair, then angrily rubbing his face. To Ashby, “Have you alerted everyone at the exit gates so the son of a bitch can’t get out?”

  Ashby’s face fell. “We don’t man the gates after dark this late in the season. There’s no one there to stop them.”

  Joe turned away in frustration.

  A few moments later an emergency room doctor wearing jeans, Teva sandals, and a sweatshirt reading WILDERNESS, SCHMILDERNESS opened the door and addressed the rangers.

  “She’s in critical condition,” he said, glancing down at his clipboard. “We’re trying to stabilize her but it doesn’t look good. I called off the Life-Flight chopper to Billings for now because I’m concerned about moving her at all. If we see some progress, I’ll call them back.”

  Layborn asked, “Is she going to make it?”

  “Didn’t you just hear what I said?”

  “But if you were to guess . . .”

  The doctor shook his head, said, “I’ll keep you posted.”

  Joe found Ashby staring at him. “What?”

  Ashby stepped close to Joe so he could speak in a whisper. “I just keep thinking that Judy would be okay now if you hadn’t showed up,” he said.

  “CAN WE SEE her?” Jake asked Joe. Erin stood behind her brother in the living room of their house, her face drained, her hair stringy.

  “I don’t think so,” Joe said. “The doctor wouldn’t allow anyone in.”

  Jake said, “I’d like to get one of my dad’s guns and find whoever did this.” He said it with such controlled fury that Joe reached out and put his hand on the boy’s shoulder.

  “We’d all like to do that,” Joe said. “But we don’t know who did it yet. All we know is that he was driving a black SUV.”

  “Will they find him?” Jake asked, challenge in his voice.

  “Yes,” Joe lied.

  He made sure they had food in the house and promised to call them the minute he knew something and to come get them if they would be allowed to see their mother.

  “Can you get in touch with your dad?” Joe asked. “Does he know what’s going on?”

  “We tried to get him on his cell phon
e,” Erin said. Her eyes were vacant, wounded. “He didn’t answer.”

  “Keep trying,” Joe said. “He needs to get back here.”

  Joe wrote down Lars’s cell phone number and put the slip in his pocket, thinking he would try later himself. Maybe it would be best if Lars heard the news from him instead of his children, he thought.

  As he left, he looked hard at Jake. “Keep the guns in the closet, okay?”

  Jake said, “They’re in a gun safe in my dad’s bedroom.”

  “That’s good.”

  “It would be if I didn’t know the combination,” Jake said.

  “But you won’t let him open it, will you, Erin?” Joe said.

  “No.”

  Jake turned on his heel, punched the air, and strode angrily to his room, where he slammed the door shut.

  “You’re in charge,” Joe said to Erin.

  “Don’t worry,” she said. “Just help my mom.”

  ONE BY ONE, the rangers left the clinic throughout the night. Several to go out on patrol, searching for the black SUV, several to simply go home and get some sleep so they could take over the search in the morning. Ashby left around midnight, after sending a message to the doctor through the receptionist that he was to be called at any hour if there was progress or “any kind of news.” He left with Layborn, who lingered at the door longer than necessary. When Joe looked up, he got Layborn’s coldest cop glare.

  “You going back to the hotel soon?” Layborn asked.

  “In a few minutes,” Joe said.

  Layborn nodded, left. Joe wondered why the ranger cared where he spent the night.

  Joe sat on a worn faux-leather couch, trying to read a Field & Stream magazine but finding himself reading the same page over and over without absorbing it. He called Jake and Erin to tell them there was no news.