Canyon Sacrifice (6 page)

As he upped the challenge of his hunts over the years, Chuck remained committed to never wounding and losing an animal. Never again, anyway.

The first year he hunted elk, Chuck saw few tracks and not a single animal. He spotted elk his second year, but none were within range. During his third October hunt, he lined up a three-hundred-yard shot on a good-sized bull standing just below the top of a steep ridge.

Chuck steadied himself against the trunk of a tree and squeezed the trigger. He planned for the shot to drop several inches over the three-football-field distance to its target, but he didn't account for the added bullet drop resulting from the shot's uphill trajectory from his location at the foot of the ridge. That additional drop turned what should have been a clean kill into a shot that only wounded the bull. When the bullet clipped its ribcage below its heart and lungs, the elk stumbled, regained its footing, and charged up and over the ridge and out of sight.

Chuck tracked the bull until dark and resumed the search at dawn, following drops of blood, broken branches where the wounded animal had pushed blindly through thickets, and an occasional hoof print in dirt. Nearly eighteen hours after being wounded, the elk's meat by then was unsalvageable. Still, Chuck kept tracking the animal, unable to bear the thought of leaving the bull to a lingering death. Late in the morning, he broke from a stand of trees into an open meadow. A flock of magpies rose, squawking, from knee-high grass thirty yards ahead. At the spot where the birds had risen, he came upon all that was left of the bull: a shredded ribcage, a few stray bits of hide, and the animal's skull with a line of vertebrae attached to its base. The tines of the bull's antlers, protruding from the skull, pointed accusingly up at him from the grass. Scat from the pack of coyotes that had ended the bull's misery was scattered thickly around what was left of the animal.

Never again, Chuck swore that day. Never again, when presented with a shot, would he squeeze the trigger unless he knew with absolute certainty he would instantly end the animal's life. In the years since, by sticking to his pledge, Chuck had become an expert woodsman, capable of moving in complete silence across any terrain, alert to the slightest changes in wind direction, able to recognize the barest outlines of animals more than a mile away. He'd learned that the way to rise to the challenge of hunting ghost-like elk was to become ghost-like himself, and he'd never lost an animal since.

Chuck took a swallow of beer as Janelle tapped away at her computer beside him. Janelle's highly interactive social life was hardly ghost-like. She updated her Facebook page every few hours, and gossiped online and on the phone with her girlfriends all day, every day. Right now, with her daily, dinner-hour phone call to her parents still to come, she no doubt was divulging personal details of her first-ever visit to the Grand
Canyon for all the world to see. She didn't hide from Chuck the leading role he played in her various communication streams these days, though when she tried to let him in on everything she posted about him online, he politely begged off having to listen.

His heart sank as his thoughts turned to Janelle's comments in the museum corridor. Was their marriage destined to end before it had a chance to begin? If so, Janelle would go back to Albuquerque. She would pick up where she'd left off, surrounded by family and friends. She'd be fine. So, too, would the girls. But what of him?

Suddenly he understood what it was that had driven Donald to drink in the years following his divorce.

Janelle must have felt Chuck's eyes on her. “Need something?” she asked, without looking up.

“Just enjoying looking at you.”

She smiled and continued typing.

Chuck drained his beer. At least the hatchet had been a success. A piece of himself he'd shared with Janelle and the girls. And they'd liked it, hadn't they? That proved there was at least some sort of overlap between him and the three of them. He just had to dedicate himself to finding more of those points of crossover, that was all.

He pushed himself from his chair. “I'm gonna hit the john.”

Janelle nodded without looking up, her fingers flying.

After visiting the bathroom, Chuck made his way through the campground row by row. Donald had said the woman from Maricopa Point was here at Mather somewhere. Chuck checked car license plates as he approached each campsite. Within a few minutes, he passed vehicles from Arkansas, Washington, D.C., Maine, and North Dakota. He passed two campsites with cars bearing New Mexico plates, but did not catch sight of the woman at either one. At a campsite at the far end of the campground,
he spotted a ranger sedan parked in front of a large black SUV with gleaming chrome wheels.

Chuck scanned the site from behind a thin screen of brush. The patrol car blocked his view of the SUV's license plate. A uniformed ranger stood beside the park vehicle. Chuck recognized the trim athletic figure and blaze-orange hair of Rachel Severin, Grand Canyon National Park ranger and adventure-race fanatic. And there, facing Rachel, was the woman from Maricopa Point, speaking angrily and jabbing the air with a pudgy, red-nailed finger. Behind her, a discount-store dome tent stood on the site's gravel tent pad. No other camping gear was in evidence.

The woman looked in Chuck's direction. Their eyes met through the brush, causing her to stop her rant in mid-sentence. Chuck froze, waiting for the woman to point him out to Rachel. Instead, the woman turned back to the ranger and resumed her diatribe.

Spooked, Chuck made for the nearest bathroom building. He ducked behind it and peeked back around the corner of the building in time to see Rachel climb behind the wheel of her ranger sedan while the woman kept right on with her tirade. Rachel pulled away from the campsite with a courteous wave to the woman, who glared after her, finally silent.

Chuck hurried across the campground as Rachel headed around the one-way loop leading to the exit. He reached the exit just ahead of Rachel and flagged her down. She stopped in the middle of the drive and looked up at him from her car window.

“Rachel,” Chuck greeted her. Butterflies fluttered unexpectedly in his stomach.

“Donald said you were here.”

“I—” he began. Why had he chased her down?

“Yes?” she urged.

“How you doing?”

“I'm not married, if that's what you mean.”

Chuck blinked. What was he doing here? He should have known better than to go along with Janelle's idea that they take their first family vacation at the Grand Canyon—although, he realized, blanching, it was
he
who had hurried across the campground to chase Rachel down.

Independent, career-oriented women like Rachel had comprised virtually all of Chuck's romantic relationships over the years. And for the longest time, such women were all he had ever imagined wanting, partners who expected nothing more of him than the same surface companionship he took from them. The mutual desire to keep things simple had driven Chuck and Rachel apart on three different occasions. Each time they'd grown too close, they'd bounced away from one another like opposing magnets. The last time they'd spoken, Chuck had told Rachel he didn't think either of them were the marrying kind, and Rachel had agreed.

Then along came Janelle.

“She's really something,” Chuck blurted.

Rachel shuttered her eyes. “I'm sure she is.”

“I didn't mean—”

“You never do, Chuck.”

“She's . . . She's . . . You're . . .” Chuck stuttered his way to silence, feeling as if he were drowning, as if he were last in a mile swim and Rachel was leading the way, far ahead, with her sure and steady strokes. She was smart, pretty, confident—everything logic told him he should desire in a mate. Their third and final breakup had come two years ago, just before Chuck had completed his work at the latrine site and left the park to begin the transmission-line contract.

Rachel was waiting.

“Still competing?” he asked.

“I'm a few weeks away from hitting masters—” the masters
division of the adventure-racing circuit to which she devoted all her free time was for racers forty and over “—which means, barring injury, I should be looking at nationals next year.”

Rachel's adventure races were held in places like Utah's red-rock country, the backwoods of Maine, and the high Sierra. The races lasted two to three days and nights, and involved rock climbing, whitewater kayaking, cross-country running, mountain biking, zip-lining, and any other outlandish outdoor pursuits race organizers could dream up. While serving as Rachel's one-man crew at a number of her races over the years, Chuck had come to appreciate the camaraderie between opposing teams and racers at the events, the odd juxtaposition of intense athletic competition waged deep in the backcountry, and the emotional highs and lows that were an inevitable part of such lengthy contests.

“Rachel Severin, national champion,” he said. “Nice ring to it.” Her green eyes glowed in response. “I saw you with that woman back there,” he continued. “Looked like she was giving you a hard time.”

“She wasn't too out of line, considering she's trapped here ‘til morning. Gotta take it out on somebody.”

“She can't leave?”

“Coroner's coming from Flag. Retired Air Force surgeon, just elected. Everything by the book. Wants to visit the scene before he accompanies the boyfriend's body back to town. Until then, Begay says she stays close.”

Chuck recalled the man's Isotopes sweatshirt. “She's from Albuquerque?”

“Yep.”

“The guy fell? That's what Donald said.”

Rachel inclined her head. “Something to do with a fight. She says he was showing off, trying to save face. Climbed up on the railing, struck a pose, slipped. Big guy, like her. Never had a chance.”

“The fight was between the two of them?”

“No. Him and some other guy. She says it was over before it began. Doesn't sound like there's much to it. This woman and her boyfriend, from the sound of things, their whole life was one big brawl.”

“‘Big' being the operative word.”

“Zipper on the body bag blew out during the retrieval. Paramedics had to suture him back in just to get him to the top.” Rachel's lips ticked upward in the start of a smile.

Chuck had forgotten how much he enjoyed being with her. He gave the roof of her car an amiable tap. “Good seeing you.”

“You, too.” She sounded as if she meant it. She accelerated a few feet, then stopped and stuck her head out the window. “Good luck, family man,” she said, before ducking back inside and driving away.

He stood in the middle of the exit until an approaching car sounded its horn behind him, herding him out of the way. The evening sunlight winked out as a small cloud passed in front of the sun. Chuck dug his fingers into the palms of his hands as he headed across the campground toward Janelle and the girls, his thoughts returning to the woman from Albuquerque. Why had she ignored him when she'd spotted him spying on her? Why hadn't she told Rachel it was Chuck who had punched her boyfriend?

According to Rachel, Chuck's fight with the guy in the Isotopes sweatshirt was at least partly to blame for the guy's death. Chuck kicked at a pinecone lying in the campground drive. He knew one thing for sure: he had to get away from here. He shouldn't have agreed to come to the canyon. There was no rush for Janelle to learn the details of his profession; she'd get to know all about what he did for a living as she got to know him.

He stopped.

Janelle didn't really know him yet, did she? As fast as everything
had happened between them, how could she? And, when it came right down to it, Chuck knew just as little about her.

It was far too soon for Janelle to judge the strength of their marriage. How could either of them measure their true commitment to each other at this early stage? That was the reasoning he would present to her as soon as they were back in Durango. She would agree that they should give themselves enough time to fully get to know one another, and things between them would smooth out.

He resumed walking. He had to get away from the canyon with Janelle and the girls, get back to the new life they were still in the process of creating for themselves in Colorado. No excuse he could come up with would convince Janelle to break camp this evening and drive back to Durango through the night, but he'd be able to come up with something by morning that would require their departure—maybe a sudden need to finish the final report on the transmission-line project sooner rather than later for Marvin Begay.

Yes, that excuse would work when he trotted it out over breakfast tomorrow. All he had to do was make it through tonight.

The girls were seated side by side at the picnic table eating dinner when Chuck returned to camp. Rosie's cheeks were shiny with chicken grease. She bounced up and down in excitement at his appearance. Even Carmelita, looking up from wiping each of her fingers fastidiously with a paper towel, brightened at his approach.

Janelle waved him over to where she sat in her camp chair. “My folks are so glad we made it,” she told him. She held up her phone, beaming. “Dolores and Amelia, too,” she added, naming her closest friends in Albuquerque.