Antler Dust (The Allison Coil Mystery Series Book 1) (2 page)

She went back to being a professional guide. She packed up Bear and her powerful black mule, Eli. Vic and his buddies started building a fire and discussed meal preparations. Allison mounted her horse and turned to survey the camp one more time before heading Bear toward home. Vic held up his hand in a way that she interpreted as a combination wave and smile that said “maybe another time.”

Allison pointed Bear straight up through the scrub oak and the main trail that would take her down through the Ripplecreek Canyon and bring her home.

****

Dean Applegate lay prone in the snow. The distant ridge that he had been relying on for bearings had vanished in low clouds an hour ago, about the same time he had popped open a can of cold beef stew and called it breakfast. Through a pair of binoculars, Applegate panned the facing hillside as carefully as the master had taught him. The twin lenses delivered a jittery view of the landscape, a phenomenon he had never seen discussed in hunting magazines. But at least he was going through the motions, doing what he had read and what he had been shown by other sportsmen.

From down Ripplecreek Canyon, he could hear a distant clatter, the cacophony orchestrated by animal rights protesters to frighten off the elk and deer. The noise of those meddling buzzards blended in a staccato clamor, fading in and out. The clouds were sinking and the racket bounced at him from different directions.

There
. Something moved.

The plodding shape was near the bottom of the slope where he was perched.

It was moving toward him.

The creature was at least a hundred yards away, so Applegate could not tell for sure whether it was elk or deer. It’s moving too slowly. It might be wounded. It might be an outcast or an orphan, but that didn’t matter.

I am an assassin. No pity.

He tried to remember all the things a good hunter would do at this moment, with prey in his sights. The list came slowly: check the wind, stay low, watch your step. But all of that was garbled with one notion:
Shoot
.

The animal turned to give him a good butt view. Slowly it turned back and continued to move steadily, relentlessly, as if it were the one doing the stalking. But Applegate didn’t think he had been spotted. Camouflage was key. Applegate felt at one with the scenery. He was dressed to kill from cap to boot. His face was caked in olive and black greasepaint. The tree-and-leaf pattern on his parka, pants, gloves, rifle, socks, backpack, binoculars and sunglasses all matched. The pattern was known as ambush and that was his theme: surprise and destroy.

Applegate imagined how his friends’ faces would look when he came back with the trophy. He knew they didn’t think much of him as a hunter, but their opinion of him would be transformed on the spot. There was no doubt.

He aimed and waited. The animal poked its nose around a large tree.

Deer
.

Applegate swatted away creeping doubts. Wild animals never looked very big at a distance, but the animal in his sights was too small to be an elk.

He squeezed the trigger and the world exploded.

The brown shape dropped.

Rifle still up around his shoulder, Applegate stumbled down the slope, through the scrub and thorny bushes, ready to fire again if the animal decided to get up and limp off.

He knew his kill would be no match in size for whatever George Grumley might bring down today. A whale underwater turns into a minnow once it’s in the boat, he thought. But at least this small animal was something to show for his hunt.

It was dead, a clean shot. The brown heap did not budge. From where Applegate stood, the animal was bisected by the thin trunk of an aspen sapling flecked in quaking gold leaves.

Applegate kept the butt of the rifle tucked into his shoulder and cocked his eye square down the barrel as he stepped to the side of the aspen, a bit hesitant, fearful even, to invade the space where an animal had just died. Alas, it was more a yearling than a prize buck.

He did not recognize it. What the hell was it? The fur was smooth, much too smooth for a wild animal. For a moment, he flashed on the idea that it was a new species, a strange hybrid. This would be a second feather in his cap, a curiosity to show the men back at camp. He had not only proven his ability to kill, he might have discovered a new form of wildlife. He couldn’t see the head. Maybe it was tucked underneath the body. Maybe the animal had broken its neck in the fall.

He stepped around to the side of the baby aspen and squatted slowly. His knees cracked unceremoniously. He hated the way his knees cracked when he squatted near the fire back at camp, like the pop of burning sap. He could always hear the muted chuckling of the other hunters.

A hand poked out from the fur where there should have been a hoof. There were fingernails, too, clean and white. Four fingers. There was no need to look for a thumb.

It all stared up at him, human as guilt.

****

Rocky Carnivitas heard a muffled pop off in the distance. It gave him reason to smile. The echo of the rifle shot was like a satisfying growl that resonated deep in the woods. He waited for another, but it didn’t come. The shot was either a one-bullet drop, with no need for a finishing shot, or a miss. From the sound, he calculated the shot was at least a mile away, down Ripplecreek. You could never be too sure, given the echoes and funny way mountains absorbed sounds, kicked them around. He hoped the bullet had found its mark, hoped a hunter would soon be dragging a carcass down to his truck so all the granola-crunching protesters would gape at the corpse, get angry and make more of a stupid fuss than they were already generating. Maybe the evidence that their protest had not worked would make them give up and go home. And get haircuts.

Rocky crouched next to a smooth boulder high up in Ripplecreek Canyon. He was a few hundred yards above timberline where the taller trees in the forest gave way to irregular clumps of scrubby bushes scattered among vast, open stretches of loose rock. At his feet, a big bull elk lay on the ground, alive but unconscious. The huge animal took furtive breaths as Rocky gingerly slipped the collar and GPS unit around its neck. He worked carefully to avoid bumping the valuable rack. These were trophy antlers destined to one day hang on the wall of a hunter’s den. Some fat cat would pay ten Gs or more to stand in the woods and kill the elk later. The animal was probably wondering if it was dying. The collar, as thin as a shoelace but made of leather, snapped together.

Rocky patted the elk on its chest as if it were a puppy dog.

The air over the upper bowl of Ripplecreek tasted wet. He was lucky to be doing this work during the morning’s relative calm. He had hiked far enough up the valley that the mayhem from the protesters was no longer a factor. None of them would venture this high, especially with the sky turning into a snow-sopped sponge. There was a storm coming. The damned hippies had better have skis.

Rocky stepped over to his backpack and dug out a small grease-stained notebook from a side pocket. He jotted down the GPS unit number and a note about the location and time of day, along with a few details about the animal.

The elk was theirs. Tagged. Marked for death, though the date was unknown.

“Nice work, as always,” said a voice behind him. Rocky whirled around.

Grumley.

Rocky’s boss was dressed for a week’s worth of icy air, goose-down pants with beaver-skin mittens dangling from his belt. He was holding a rifle in his right fist. A rusty Eddie Bauer watch dangled from a leather lanyard around his neck. There was a story to that watch. Grumley treasured the timepiece and insisted he would be buried with it around his neck. The watch had been taken from the stomach of a bear he’d shot. The bear had invaded a Boy Scout camp up near Meeker. None of the scouts had been hurt, but the scoutmaster had been mauled to death. It had taken Grumley three days of tracking through rugged high-country terrain to catch up with the bruin. When he had hoisted the bear from the branch of a tree for bloodletting, the watch had fallen from a slit in its belly. Grumley tried to bring the watch back to the scoutmaster’s next of kin, but they wanted Grumley to keep it as thanks for his efforts to protect others. The watch was still ticking.

“Did I take you by surprise?” said Grumley.

This was a loaded question. It was never a smart move to admit being taken by surprise in the high country, but there was no advantage in lying to Grumley.

“Fuck, my heart’s pounding. Jesus, don’t ever do that again.” The notebook quivered in Rocky’s hand.

Grumley had a peculiar look on his face.

“Is that the bull we were after?”

“Has to be,” said Rocky.

“Good,” said Grumley. “A bonus.”

Grumley wiped his beard and lips with the back of his hairy hand. He had a habit of scratching or twiddling at the thick, three-inch tuft of gray-white beard on his chin.

Rocky didn’t understand what Grumley meant by “bonus.” Maybe he was supposed to know, but he didn’t ask. Grumley was not the kind of man who liked being pestered with questions.

The elk began pawing at the dirt. It was starting to recover from the knockout drug injected by the dart.

Grumley watched the animal with professional interest. He owned the hunting guide operation and Rocky knew Grumley saw the elk as only one thing: money in the bank.

Rocky Carnivitas watched the elk with apprehension, hoping he had done everything correctly. Rocky didn’t like people looking over his shoulder and passing judgment on the quality of his workmanship. But then, who did?

“How the hell did you sneak up on me?” Rocky said. “I thought you were with your buddies. And, say, did you hear the damn protesters?”

“I’ve been thinking about your ... whaddya call it?” Grumley’s handmade twirling motions as he tried to find the right word. The gun swayed in his grip.

“Proposal,” said Rocky.

“Right.”Rocky felt a rolling earthquake sensation in his gut. How the hell had he missed being followed? And why was his boss here anyway?

“Let’s review that proposal, shall we?”

The last time they had talked, Rocky was able to screw up his courage to confront Grumley by knocking back a couple of double Wild Turkeys and then describing his proposal quickly. After Rocky had spelled things out, Grumley looked at him intently, thoughtfully—as if Rocky was simultaneously delivering a well-designed business plan and relieving Grumley of a chronic tension headache. The session had taken place in the barn a week earlier. Since then, Rocky had wondered when and how the subject would come up again. He had hardly suspected it would happen here and now, up in the high country, with a gun right there, flopping about in Grumley’s hand.

“Okay, you want me to give you twenty grand,” Grumley said, “or some such healthy amount like that. Right?”

“That’s just a for instance amount,” Rocky said, squatting down next to the elk to check the collar again, acting casual. As if this whole sordid situation was no big deal.

“What do you mean? You said an amount but you don’t mean it?” said Grumley.

“The ballpark,” said Rocky. “Not necessarily the final number.”

“So the amount of money might go up from there?”

“Or down. Depends on the situation.”

“Okay, the ballpark,” Grumley said. “The ballpark. And all of it buys me freedom from my wife and buys me solid gold guaranteed one hundred percent protection, because you are going to sit tight and not discuss my business operation with the authorities. Have I got it right? Is that the rough idea?”

When Rocky had first conceived of the plan it had made sense, the kind of sense incubated in a bottle of Wild Turkey. But now he was not so certain of its wisdom. Rocky stood up. The clouds had thickened in the past few minutes and the air carried a fresh whiff of pine. He ignored the erratic twitching of the elk’s hind legs. It made a scrabbling sound on the rocks.

“That’s more or less the idea,” Rocky said. “But if you want to talk—”

“Good. Because I have a question, Rocky. Have you been screwing my wife?”

Rocky froze. “What the hell do you mean?” he said, worried that the pause had given him away.

“You little fuck,” growled Grumley. “She ...

“She what?”

“She wants—”

“Oh, so you know what Trudy wants, huh?” Grumley scoffed. “Just beautiful.” He held both arms out as if he could hug the hillside. The rifle dangled loosely in his hand.

Rocky spoke quickly. “Trudy only wants enough money to make another start.”

“I can’t believe I’m talking to a guy who’s screwing my wife.” Rocky swallowed hard. He kept an eye on the gun. “It’s seed money to get her going,” he said. “Seed for two fuckin’ birds?”

“It would only put a dent in your stash,” Rocky said with a note of certainty in his voice.

“How would you know? Have you been examining my books?” said Grumley.

“You screw my wife and you mess around with my business too, is that it? Did you hear what I said? My business. Think about it.”

“It’s just a drop in the—”

“Says who? Fuck you and your miserable plan.” Grumley pointed the barrel of the gun at Rocky’s face. “How does a nobody like you figure he’s gonna snap his fingers and make himself a somebody?”

Snow began falling. It was sudden. No advance troops. The storm started in full battle mode.

“Well—”

Grumley took a step forward. Rocky backed up to where the elk lay scraping the rocks with its hooves. Grumley’s fist came up gripping the gunstock like a brick. Rocky reeled backward and reached out to clutch at a rock, any rock, to brace his fall. His cheek was on fire.

Rocky crawled toward his backpack, coughing, spitting blood, disoriented. He shook his head and struggled to his knees, knelt over his pack and dug into it. There was one shot of xylazine left. He swung around and pressed the barrel of a dart gun against the elk’s still-quivering neck, a nice soft spot. The overdose would be as effective as a bullet behind the ear. The elk would die fast.

“What the hell are you doing?” Grumley said. “Trying to get your goddamn attention.” Rocky cocked the dart gun.