Bear Bait (9781101611548) (31 page)

“Did you know her, sir?”

He knew she worried about her weight and wished she were skinny instead of sturdy. He knew she wanted to go to college. But he didn’t know what she’d study when she got there. Allie had a lot of secret dreams.

How could it be Allie? Now he really
wanted
her to be in Los Angeles, wanted her to be anywhere else. But Christ, it all fit. The forest fire was the same night that she didn’t come home. And even when he wasn’t sober enough to know it at the time, Allie had always come home.

Jack had hung her photos on his bedroom wall instead
of putting them in the mail. The bastard had known all along. What had Jack done to his daughter? Ernest sat up and grabbed the ranger by the arm. Choi looked startled, laid his hand on the butt of his weapon.

“I know her,” Ernest croaked. “I need to talk to you.”

LISA’S
memorial service cast an understandable pall over the trail crew, and the kids were quiet during dinner at the bunkhouse. It was too wet for a campfire, so Blackstock divided them into teams and had them play Trivial Pursuit. Thank heavens they had the popular culture version; Sam couldn’t quite imagine these teens competing in geography and history.

Sam retired to her room and made a few notes about her morning’s fieldwork and its implications for her management plan. Then, bored, she pulled out her quilt blocks and estimated how many more it might take to make a quilt, trying to concoct various designs for a finished product. Nothing that she came up with was pleasing, and the whole idea was starting to seem narcissistic to her. She didn’t really have the skill to make a quilt. She didn’t have children to pass one on to, either; what was the point in documenting her life in needlework? Still, she thought, running her fingers over her mother’s and grandmother’s embroidery, it would be a shame not to honor these beautiful pieces of art. Maybe she’d just frame them. She shoved them into their plastic bag, tossed it onto the top bunk, and since the boys were all involved in the game, commandeered the bathroom and took her shower.

When she returned to the room, she found Maya sitting cross-legged on her own bunk, the quilt blocks spread out on the blanket around her. “Sorry,” the redhead said, glancing at Sam, “but I couldn’t resist. These are
sweet
.”

“You think so?” Sam slung her towel onto a hook on the wall. A tough girl like Maya, enthralled by embroidery?

“What are they for?”

Sam explained the album quilt.

“Your mom and grandma made these for you?” The girl fingered the square of Sam and Comanche galloping through the fields. “You had a horse?”

Maya’s tone was so wistful that Sam felt guilty as she nodded yes.

THE
continuing rain made it a little easier for Sam to sit at her desk researching NPS regulations and vocabulary and finessing her management plan all the next day. She was headed north on 101 back to the trail crew bunkhouse, when she just happened to look in her rearview mirror in time to catch the flash of white turning east on Forest Service Road 4312. A big pickup.

Not Garrett Ford’s—his neighbors told her his was black. Only this morning she had cruised his house to see if by any chance there was a wreath of bear claws on his front door or a pool of blood leaking out of the garage, but nobody was home and his truck was gone.

Road 4312 was the one from which the illegal track took off to infiltrate the Marmot Lake area. There were no campgrounds along 4312. It was dusk. Odds were that the occupants of the white truck were up to no good.

She stomped on her brakes, hydroplaning a little, and then made a U-turn. By the time she got back to the turnoff, the vehicle was nowhere in sight. She drove down the dirt road, checking pullout areas and side roads. She saw only piles of rubbish dumped by yahoos too lazy or cheap to drive to the county dump.

She reached the beginning of the illegal track. The brush that rangers had piled across the track had been heaved aside, and new tread marks embossed the mud. She parked, checked her watch—Joe was on duty for another fifteen minutes.

He didn’t sound thrilled to hear her on the radio. She
gave him her location; told him that it looked like they had activity on that illegal track into Marmot Lake.

“Are they in the NPS area?” he asked.

“I’m just off 4312—I can’t tell. I can’t see them from here. I’ll check.”

His “no!” was loud and definite, even over the staticky radio connection. “You’re a civilian—stay out of there.”

A loud crack resounded through the dripping woods. Sam’s heart leapt into race mode. “I just heard a gunshot, Joe. I have to see what’s happening.” Sliding the pickup into four-wheel drive, she started down the track.

“No! Stay put! I’m on my way.”

“But Raider—”

“Remember Caitlin Knight.”

That brought her up short. Hikers had found the poor woman’s torso, still dressed in her uniform, this morning along the beach out where the river emptied into the Pacific. Her arms, legs, and head were missing. They couldn’t be sure of the actual cause of death without the rest of her body parts, but the bullet hole in the back of her USFWS uniform shirt left no doubt that she’d been murdered.

“She died on the job. Just like this, Sam.”

“Okay.” She took a deep breath, put the truck into park, and turned off the lights. She tried to take comfort from the fact that she’d heard no more gunshots. Maybe the prey had gotten away. But then again, maybe the first bullet had been sufficient.

Joe arrived seven minutes later. She climbed into his truck. There was now a wide swath cut around the rock trap she’d devised, and they took that detour, too, crashing through the brush. “They’ll hear us a half mile away,” Joe groaned.

A few hundred feet from the end of the track, he parked and shut off the engine. He took a key from his belt and unlocked the overhead rack, pulled down a rifle. As he reached for the door handle, he said, “Stay here.”

“Like hell I will.” Sam slid out.

They crept through the woods, one on each side of the track, trying to keep sight of each other in the growing
darkness and sheeting rain. Sam’s entire body prickled with dread.

The clearing held two pickups, one black and one white. No men in sight. There was a steel cage near the tailgate of the black pickup, with a huge lump of black fur lying motionless inside. Her heart in her throat, Sam heard Joe’s hissed “no” from the nearby woods, but she rushed to the cage, anyway.

It
was
Raider. His once-lively black eyes were filmy, his tongue lolled out of his mouth, lifeless. Rage flooded her veins.

“Goddamn it!” She slammed a fist on the cage frame.

“Come on out, guys,” Joe yelled from his position. “You’re not going to get away. We have your license numbers; I’ve already radioed them in.”

That last part was a lie; they hadn’t been able to see license numbers until now. And she knew they were in a radio-free zone. Would Joe’s bluff work? Would the poachers walk out of the woods with their hands up? Staring angrily at the lifeless black heap that used to be a bear, she hoped it wouldn’t happen that easily. It would be nice if Joe was forced to shoot at least one of the murderers.

“I know these trucks belong to Garrett Ford and Gale Martinson,” Joe yelled. “We can either do this peaceably right now, or we’ll impound your trucks and pick you up later.”

After a tense moment, a teenage boy walked out of the woods, his hands held out to his sides. “Michael Martinson?” Joe said. “What in the hell—”

A branch cracked. The bulky form of Garrett Ford in a rain poncho materialized next to his pickup. He held a rifle in his right hand. “Don’t blame Mike,” he said. “He’s just helping me load.”

“Drop the weapon!” Joe barked.

Ford seemed to consider whether or not this was a good idea. Sam wished for the second time she’d brought her Glock with her. What was she going to do if bullets started flying?

She heard Joe click the safety off his shotgun. “Put down that rifle!” he yelled again.

“Never leave the safety on myself. Too slow.” Ford continued to point his weapon at Joe. He lowered his head as if aiming down the sights. Rain dripped from his graying forelock.

A flash of headlights and the groan of an engine announced an approaching vehicle. Sam’s blood suddenly chilled. Did Ford and Martinson have armed comrades on the way? She looked to Joe in alarm. His gaze was locked with Ford’s. She glanced at Mike Martinson, who looked as uncertain as she felt.

A rivulet of rain ran down the side of her neck. There was a sizable rock next to her right foot. Should she chuck it at Ford? Mike studied the ground around him as though he might be weighing the same consideration. Except she was pretty sure that
his
target would be Joe.

All four of them flinched when a voice came from the darkness around them. “Dammit, Garrett, what are you up to now?”

Unbelievably, it was Arnie Cole, and he had a rifle trained on Ford. A rustle on the other side of the circle brought her attention to another forest service ranger. He, too, had a rifle pointed in the same direction. “Three to one, Ford. Give it up,” he said.

Finally making up his mind, Ford laid his rifle on the ground. Joe ordered Mike Martinson to sit on the ground, hands under his buttocks. Then he patted Ford down for other weapons.

Arnie pointed his rifle skyward as he clutched the poacher’s arm. “Just two miles north and four more days, you dumb shit, and you could have been hunting legally.”

“How could you?” Sam spat at Ford. “How could you kill this bear, in a protected zone, for no good reason—”

“I don’t kill them,” Ford grunted.

Sam frowned, squatted, and thrust a hand through the bars of the cage. The carcass was still warm. Now that she had her hand pressed to his furry flank, she could feel that Raider was still breathing, although barely. “He’s not
dead.” Her voice was squeaky with surprise. “They darted him, Joe.”

“Why?” Joe asked. Pulling handcuffs from a pouch on his service belt, he manacled Ford’s hands behind his back.

“I want a lawyer.” Ford frowned at Sam. “I shoulda just let him shoot you.”

She blanched. “Let
who
shoot me?”

“Don’t let him yank your chain, Sam.” Joe turned to the boy. “Stand up, Mike.” He pulled a zip-tie out of his pocket and motioned for the kid to turn around. “Aren’t you only fifteen? You can’t even drive legally yet.”

“Fifteen and a half. I got my learner’s permit.”

“Not anymore you don’t. Why are you darting bears, Mike?”

“Five,” the boy said.

Joe rolled his eyes.

Arnie’s grin was so wide that his teeth were visible in the dim light. “Forest service saves park service ass again.”

The other USFS ranger nodded. “Typical.”

Joe shot Sam an apologetic look. “I had to call them. I didn’t know what jurisdiction we’d end up in.”

“Well, well, well.” Arnie’s boots made sucking sounds in the mud as he strutted around her like a rooster. “I shoulda known hot-time-in-the-Summer Westin would be in the middle of some bear business.” Leaning close, he gave her a wink. “Told you Marmot Lake was trouble.”

Since the park service had jurisdiction and nobody had a backseat, Joe decided to load the prisoners into the bed of his pickup. Ford was sullen and silent. Mike Martinson protested, “But it’s raining.”

“Funny how you didn’t mind that a little bit ago,” Joe told him. “If you want to tell me what you were going to do with the bear, I might reconsider.”

Mike’s chin went up.

“Five,” Joe said simultaneously with the boy.

“You NPS folks speak a weird language,” Arnie said.

“We need to take the bear,” Sam said.

Everyone turned to look at her. She gestured toward the cage and repeated, “We need to take the bear. To make sure he wakes up okay. Unless”—she looked at Ford—“you have the antidote with you.”

Ford stared at her, his eyes cold.

“I didn’t think so,” she said.

The three men lifted the bear crate to the bed of Joe’s pickup. It was a tight squeeze with Garrett Ford and Mike Martinson in the back. Raider didn’t stir as they shifted him.

It was an odd feeling, driving through the woods with two criminals and a crated sleeping bear in the back. “I hope he didn’t overdose Raider,” she told Joe.

He glanced sideways at her. “What do you think Ford was going to do with that bear?”

Sam grimaced. “Notice how he said ‘I don’t kill them’? He could mean that he keeps them alive and milks them for their bile.”

“You can do that?”

She squirmed uncomfortably. “I’ve read about the way they do it in China. It’s the worst kind of torture—they keep a tube inserted through an incision into the bear’s bile duct. They sell the bile that drains out and hope the bear will produce more before it dies.” It nauseated her to think about it. “I’m worried that he said, ‘I don’t kill
them
.’ That means he’s done this before. He might have bears in cages somewhere.”

They arrived at her truck. She reached for the door handle.

“I’ll dump our boys off at the jail, but what am I going to do with the bear?” Joe asked.

“Does the park service have a vet?”

He winced. “In Port Angeles.”

An hour and a half away. She considered. “I’ll take him to the bunkhouse,” she said. “At least for now, I’m a biologist in the park service. The trail crew kids might get a kick out of having a bear with us tonight.”

She backed her truck up to Joe’s, and with a great deal of shoving and pulling, they finally managed to push the
crate from Joe’s pickup into hers. Raider still wasn’t moving, but when she felt his throat to make sure he was breathing, he seemed to be holding his own. His black eyes were dull and still at half-mast, though. Worrisome. “Got some eye ointment in your first aid kit, Joe?”

He did. She squeezed a thread of ointment across the bear’s eyes to keep them from drying out, and stuck the tube in her pocket for later.

She followed Joe back to Road 4312, trying to ignore the icy glares Ford and Martinson aimed at her. She would have turned on her high beams to irritate the two if the bright lights wouldn’t have tortured Joe, too.