Trial by Ice and Fire (19 page)

“You look out for her, you hear? She's a lot like her mother. Gives off a scent or something, you know? Makes guys go crazy. Do the damnedest things.”

I walk back in just in time to hear the sheriff asking Cali, “Do you know what's the matter with him?”

“An aneurysm. It's in his brain.”

“Oh God. I'm sorry, Cali. Is it bad?”

Cali nods. “The worst.”

“Is he getting treated? I don't imagine a man like that carries insurance.” Even in his youth, with parachuting into forest fires as a profession and an avocation of putting up risky new routes on lonely alpine peaks, Bill Laughlin would have found it hard to get insurance.

“No,” Cali says quietly. “It's not because of money, but because of the aneurysm's location in his head. They can't operate on it. Once it starts bleeding then it's not likely to stop.”

“Let me know if there's anything I can do,” the sheriff says, looking genuinely sorrowful. She looks like she really would do something if she could.

“The only thing anyone can do is get my mom to be a little nicer to him,” Cali says. “That's really about all he wants.” On the hike in this morning Cali had talked about him. About how when she was cleaning his house once she'd found a scrapbook secreted under the kitchen sink. It had been articles about and pictures of Alana. Pictures of her and Bill and Patrick in those early days. The three of them smiling with their arms around one another.

A weird thought strikes me. Am I going to keep a scrapbook about Rebecca Hersh and the six months she loved me? Am I going to spend the next forty years clipping and concealing the articles she's written?

I take the seat Laughlin had deserted. It's across the coffee table from Cali. McGee is still slouched in the other chair and his eyes are closed. Although he and Laughlin are probably close to the same age, it's hard to believe that McGee—emphysemic, diabetic, obese, and alcoholic—will outlive the still-muscular and tough-looking hardman. My boss's ragged breath is deep and sonorous, and I wonder if he might be asleep.

I tell them about Laughlin's tentative identification of Armalli. McGee's eyes remain shut.

Making an effort to lift the mood, Cali asks in a bright voice, “So, it looks like ol' Myron is my anonymous suitor. And Anton's avalanche-safety instructor. What are we going to do about it?”

“I'm going to go get him.”

Something in my words or tone has everyone looking at me sharply.

I explain how I'd gone to his parents' old property yesterday, and that I, too, believe he's camping out somewhere around there. The sheriff confirms that she's heard the same, and that he's wanted for various hunting violations. I don't mention the way I'd sensed his presence, and how I'd nearly belly-crawled back to my truck through the dry meadow grass. I'm not afraid of him now—the only thing I'm afraid of is what I'm going to do to him.

Then I'm reminded of the one thing I'm still very much afraid of. McGee brings it up, opening his eyes. “Just make sure, lad . . . you're back in time for dinner. . . . It's at nine o'clock, I understand.”

Rebecca and her father must have called him and told him that they are coming to town. I just hope like hell they didn't go so far as to invite him to join us. Having her father there will be surreal enough.

The sheriff, too, is studying me. From the worried expression on her face it appears that she's not all that confident in what she sees. “Why don't I have some of my officers go out there and search for him? It might take a day or two, but we could set up a full-blown search of the area. Now that you're apparently the victim of an attempted murder, Agent Burns, perhaps you might not be the best man for the job.”

Before I can protest, McGee says, “Don't worry, Sheriff. He's not going to go cowboying . . . out there by himself.”

“I'm not sure what choice I have,” I add. “We need to pick him up now, and Jim has to stay here and watch Cali, in case Armalli's still on the move.” Besides, I really want to go after Armalli by myself. I don't know if I'm really capable of hurting him, but it will be interesting to find out. If he resists arrest, hey, shit happens. Everyone thinks I crossed the line long ago anyway.

“You're not going out there alone,” McGee repeats.

“Then how about you, fat man? Want to go sneaking through the woods tonight?”

An evil grin parts his beard. “No, not me, lad. I've got a better idea.”

TWENTY-FOUR

T
O GET TO
the former Armalli property, we have to drive north through the broad valley of Jackson Hole and then keep going all the way past the hamlet of Moran Junction before we're even halfway there. On the left the sun is descending onto its Wyoming bed of nails, those sharp snow-covered spires. The sight of them makes the Rat stir in his cage—the avalanche had knocked the little guy down but apparently it hadn't knocked him out. He still wants to get high. On the right we pass the entrance to Alana Reese's ranch, which is unmarked but for two enormous log posts supporting an ornate metal gate in between.

At the junction, where to the left the Skillet Glacier beckons to me with its vertical handle running all the way up the summit of Mt. Moran, we turn right onto Highway 287. A sign beyond the town reads, “Fire Danger,” and beneath it is a half-circle chart. The needle points all the way over to the right, indicating the word “Extreme.”

“No shit,” Charles Wokowski comments as he looks out the passenger's-side window. “I've never seen it so dry this early in the season.”

Passing the sign, we begin the long circle around the backside of Alana Reese's property and the Elk Refuge.

The drive seems to take a lot longer than it did yesterday afternoon, when I was alone but for Mungo. Except for his one comment, Wokowski and I don't speak at all until I turn off the paved highway and onto the dirt Forest Service road.

“I can't believe you called me for this,” he says, shaking his big head in wonder.

I don't say anything.

“Called
me
!” He sort of half laughs, still turning his head back and forth and watching me. “You got balls, QuickDraw. I'll give you that much, man.”

I grip the wheel as the Pig rattles over some washboard ruts, the rusty iron squealing in protest. “Don't call me that.”

We bounce along, passing numerous offshoots, some of which have been blocked with big boulders to keep redneck four-wheelers from tearing up the meadows. It isn't easy to spot the little numbered plaque that marks the main track in the thickening twilight. This place is a living maze. In the dusk it appears completely different from what I remember of yesterday's aborted search. I slow almost to a stop a couple of times to study the topographical map spread on my lap before creeping on.

Wokowski decides to provoke me some more. “It's a pretty nice, accurate name for a guy who's inclined to use his gun. I'm surprised you don't like it.”

We aren't going all that fast, maybe ten miles an hour, but he's cut in half by his lap belt—all the old truck has—when I stomp on the brake and we skid in the dirt. It causes him to slap his meaty palms on the dashboard and nearly smash his face on the cracked vinyl.

“Let's get something straight, asshole,” I say, twisting in my seat to face him directly. “What you've read or heard is bullshit. That was no execution. I was jumped.”

Staring back at me, his eyes as unreadable as ever, Wokowski asks, “You sure 'bout that?”

I want to snarl, or, better yet, butt him on the bridge of his nose with my forehead. But my voice stays low and even. “Yeah. I'm sure. I got very, very lucky.”

“Three guys. All armed and waiting.” He purses his lips and lets out a low, derisive whistle. The air moves over my face, carrying the fruity scent of his gum.

I could explain that there was no aiming involved in that abandoned ranch house in Cheyenne. No thinking even—just sheer terror and fury and my gun banging in my hand, the Rat shrieking away like it was the biggest thrill the little beast had ever had. But I don't waste my breath.

“Like I said, I was very lucky. Especially since none of them were elderly, handcuffed, or spread on the hood of my patrol car.”

Now—for the first time—there
is
something readable in his eyes. The dark pupils within the brown irises seem to contract until they are fine, sharp points. Like daggers dipped in poison. His breath comes faster, too. It blows on my face in short, fruity blasts. The windows of the truck must be close to exploding from the pressure inside.

This could be it, I think. What we've been working toward for the past two days.

Wokowski exhales a hard breath that almost causes me to leap at him. Then he leans back in the seat, tilts back his head, and looks through the windshield out at the sky. It's cobalt between the trees. Almost night. He sighs a second time.

“Okay. I fucked up,” he says.

After a minute he adds, “And I deserved that, because the truth is, I lost it. Not as bad as I could have”—here he glances at me significantly, not sure whether he should believe my denials regarding the shooting of the gangbangers—“but I fucking lost it. And I'm going to pay for it, too. Maybe get suspended. Maybe get charged, too, when the sheriff finishes her investigation and after this whole thing gets exposed at trial.”

“
If
it goes to trial. I hear the victim, I mean the defendant, is having a hard time walking down stairs these days.”

Wokowski looks over at me again, slower this time. But he still doesn't explode. Instead he grins at me. A sick, lopsided sort of grin. “You think I did that? You're wrong, Burns. The guy's a fucking drunk. I was nowhere near him last night. I messed up enough once—I'm not going to do it again.”

I stare back at him, scrutinizing his broad face and eyes for any sign of deception. But his gaze is steady and his expression neutral. The words sound genuine. For some reason I find myself close to believing him, against my will, or at least willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. The way I wish everyone would do for me. The way he seems to be doing for me now.

“I know about the kid,” I say. “That's why you roughed him up in the first place, wasn't it?”

He nods and goes back to staring out the windshield. His voice is heavy and sad. “It wasn't that way for you?”

I also look out at the coming night.

“I don't know. I think I pretty much knew it was a setup, but I went in anyway. I don't know what I was thinking.”

From outside the pulse of the crickets is starting to make itself heard even over the engine's idle. A ragged, discordant rhythm, not yet mature this early in the year. The first stars are becoming apparent, with the Big Dipper ladling at the horizon. It's a long while before Wokowski speaks again.

“Are you sleeping with Cali?” He's still looking through the windshield, pointedly not looking at me.

“No.”

His expression is doubtful when he turns to me. “She's been going out with you, staying at your place . . .”

“I'm supposed to be protecting her.”

“So, you guys are friends or what?”

“Yeah. We're friends.”

We sit quietly for a while longer. I wonder where this is leading now. This big man is full of surprises, too.

“I want to show you something,” he finally says.

He reaches up and turns on the overhead light, illuminating the truck's interior. Then he unbuttons his shirt's chest pocket and pulls out a ring. He pinches it carefully between his thick index finger and thumb. The gold band is not much wider than a piece of wire, and the tiny stone embedded in it glitters when he moves it.

“I was going to ask her a month ago, but then everything went to hell. I'm still going to ask her. Sometime. If I can ever get her to hear me out.”

“That's a nice ring, man.” A lot of the animosity I've felt for him over the last few days is beginning to bleed away. The pressure that had felt so close to blowing out the Pig's windows is deflated like a slashed tire.

He rolls the ring in the light for a moment, making it sparkle. “Think I've got a chance?” His tone is flat and casual, sort of self-mocking, but underneath it I can hear what sounds like genuine anxiety.

I can't get a grasp on what's happening here—I begin to feel a little paranoid. Could he be playing me for a sucker? Was the sheriff covering for him when she'd said she saw him this morning? No, it can't be true. She might try to protect one of her officers, but she wouldn't cover for him in the attempted murder of a state agent. That's too vast a conspiracy to have any credence. And stalking is a solo game. But still, I can't help but wonder. I play along anyway.

“I don't know. Maybe. If you can make her understand what happened with the old guy.”

“That's what I was trying to do, when you and me had that standoff outside the courthouse. I was bringing her the tapes of Toby—that's the boy—and the accident. You know, the tape of the accident scene and then some video of him talking to me in his chair.”

So that's what was in the gym bag. If he's telling the truth.

The engine kicks up to a higher idle, as if to suggest movement and a way of getting me out of this bizarre situation.

“Okay,” Wokowski says, nodding slightly. He tucks the ring back in his shirt pocket and buttons it up. “Okay. Let's go say hi to Myron.”

I take my foot off the brake and the Pig starts rolling forward.

“Do you know him?” I ask.

“Oh yeah. I've locked him up a couple of times. Drugged and disorderly, mostly. You know, standing around yelling, holding up traffic, that sort of thing. I never filed any charges on him. Never bothered. I'd kick him loose once he got back to normal again.”

It's dark enough that I should be using the headlights but I don't turn them on. I don't really need them anyway—everything seems unnaturally bright and intense, the way it always does after strong emotions have shot through you. The adrenaline provides light enough.

“If you guys know he's out here, how come you haven't picked him up on the hunting violations?”

“A guy's got to eat. And he's got no money, so it's either poaching or a soup kitchen. Jackson doesn't have many soup kitchens. If I were him, I'd be poaching, too.”

This is yet another side to this new Charles Wokowski, and it's disconcerting, the way he's blowing away all my preconceptions. The man who deeply regrets his mistakes, and who remains true to his love, is also the man who takes care of his own. Surreal. That's how it seems to me. But I don't allow myself to worry about it. I let it go for now.

“You know him a lot better than me,” I say. “I've only seen his picture and read about the charge Cali prosecuted him for. How do you think we should do this?”

“We'll talk to him. He'll come easy. He always does. He'll remember me. I always treated him right.”

We finally come to the weedy double-track that branches off from the main Forest Service road. There is nothing to mark it other than a warm and fuzzy welcome sign that reads: “No Trespassing. Trespassers Will Be Shot on Sight.” The lettering is faint with rust and there are numerous bullet holes adding emphasis to the boldly printed words. Even though the double-track goes for a couple of hundred yards before it reaches the clearing with the ruined house, I kill the engine here.

“Shit,” Wokowski says as he squints to read the sign in the dark. “Maybe we should've suited up. Worn vests. Myron can get a little squirrelly sometimes.”

He takes off his seat belt and unsnaps the cover of the old-fashioned leather holster he wears belted around the waist of his jeans. I get my gun out from the storage box between the seats and slip it into the nylon holster in the small of my back.

“There's a small clearing a couple of hundred yards up the road. That's where the house used to be. I checked it out yesterday. He's got to have a tent or a shack nearby. We'll stay in the trees at the edge, sneak up on him. Okay?”

Wokowski nods. “Sure.”

We get out of the truck and bump the doors shut with our hips.

Outside in the night the season's first mosquitoes are already buzzing in the air, zeroing in on the warmth of our breath. The stars overhead are dazzling. Miles from any town, there are no ground lights at all to dilute their brilliance. There must be millions visible up there. They're bright enough that Wokowski and I cast faint shadows when we start to walk even though there is no moon.

About a quarter mile up the track we come to where it opens up into the clearing. The ruined house, with its chimney and four stone corners the only things left standing upright amid the rubble, looks like some pagan place of worship. Like a funeral pyre waiting to be lit. The stars twinkling beyond it dance and flare like an omen of the sparks to come.

The menace of this place is as strong as it had been yesterday afternoon. Stronger even. But the anger that had been born beneath a mountain of snow pushes it off. And even though the day's heat still lingers in the air, the darkness is a comfortable cloak. At night the odds are well in our favor. The rifle isn't much of an advantage when there's a lot less to see.

I stay to one edge of the meadow with Wokowski walking a little ways behind me. The grass whispers beneath our boots. I come to the place where yesterday I'd seen the little path leading into the trees. Standing still for a minute, then turning and studying the thick, dark forest, I think I see a faint light through the trees beneath the hillside's steep, timber-choked slope. It looks like one of the tiny stars has descended to Earth.

I point it out to Wokowski and he nods. “Lantern,” he says.

“Keep following me, but hang back a little more,” I tell him.

With every step I wonder if I'm tripping an alarm. A little fishing line is all it would take, strung through the trees to a rock in a tin can. Meth labs I've hunted out in the past have had far more sophisticated and effective countersurveillance. But is Armalli that smart? That secretive? There's simply no way to know if he's expecting us.

The path winds through the trees up toward the ridge for several hundred feet. Although dead wood and rotting trunks lie across it, we're able to see well enough in the starlight to not make much noise. Ahead I can see the yellow light again, bigger now.

Near the ridge top, the forest opens up into a small clearing of pine needles and dirt. The light is coming from cracks around a boarded-over window of a ramshackle hut. It's a sort of lean-to that's been built against the ridge crest, where the upturned edge of a granite plate has punched out of the earth at a sharp angle to form a fifteen-foot overhang.