Shadows of Death Page 6

  “Well, one might be there. You never know.” A pang of guilt shot through her. How could she think about leaving—Frank, her dad, his pals, and the desert she had come to love; the job of a lifetime against this magical place. What a hell of a choice. She put the binoculars on the seat and turned to Frank. “What are we looking for?”

  “Nothing yet.” He eased the truck forward. “The shooter’s track pointed cross-country toward Hunter Mountain. He may have walked this section of the road.”

  “So much for tracks.” Linda shrugged.

  “Yeah, but where was he going? There’s the problem. I think he probably hid a vehicle up in the pinyons somewhere, or someone picked him up.”

  “You’re looking for a needle in a haystack.”

  “You’re probably right, but I want to look around.”

  She knew Frank had spent his life in the desert, but she never ceased to be amazed at the way he could see things where others couldn’t. It was a skill, and she admired it. Maybe more than a skill. She studied his face in profile, the dark eyes and thick lashes, the long arching nose and full lips. For a moment she experienced a temporal dislocation. It was as if he were part of the timelessness she felt in the desert.

  “Gonna trade me in?”

  She shook her head. “Not today, Flynnman.”

  Frank slowed the truck to a crawl, peering into likely sidetracks, looking for good places to hide a vehicle under the trees.

  “I didn’t know this road had so much use.”

  “It adds up. A few vehicles pulling into the same spot and you’ve got a side road, an already disturbed environment, which makes it officially open to off-road vehicles. It’s after-the-fact road making.”

  “So what are we looking for?”

  “Something not so obvious, a place to hide a vehicle that’s not attractive to off-roaders.”

  Frank ran his truck up out of the ruts, which were filled with muddy ooze from a recent thundershower. “People come up thinking the desert’s always dry and get stuck, and then we have to get ’em out.” He brought the truck to a stop.

  “What’s so special here?”

  “The rocks.”

  Linda leaned down to look out of the driver’s side window. A cluster of car-sized granite rocks thrust up from the ground like large canine teeth. Frank put the truck into reverse and eased back along the side of the road, keeping out of the gooey ruts. A narrow ravine cut across the open area and wound down to the road from behind the rocks. He pulled up near the lip of the cutback and got out of the cab.

  “Come on, let’s take a look.” He walked toward the rocks examining the rim of the cutback. “Someone dropped over this edge not too long ago.” He pointed at a portion of caved-in dirt, then turned and headed back to the truck.

  “What’s up?”

  They got into the vehicle. Frank grinned. “Hang on. If he can do it, so can I.”

  As he started the truck, he heard Linda’s voice over the engine. “Make it we, Flynnman.”

  Frank angled the truck into the narrow arroyo. The passenger side dropped precipitously, threatening to roll the vehicle on its side. This was followed by the left rear wheel thudding down into the rocky bottom. The vehicle righted itself, and Frank goosed it enough to keep it jouncing over the rocks.

  “Maybe we should’ve walked,” Linda said.

  “We don’t know how far he went.” Frank chuckled. “Besides, this way we can see if it can be done.”

  “You’re enjoying yourself,” Linda said.

  Frank’s head smacked against the driver’s side window.

  “Serves you right.”

  He slowed the truck to a crawl to ease around a huge boulder, running the right wheels up the side and tipping the vehicle to the left. Linda felt as if she were hanging from the armrest.

  The floor of the wash became less rocky where the grade became less steep near the upthrust rocks. Here, where the wash widened, a stand of pinyon pines grew in a semicircle around the rocks. Frank brought the truck to a stop near the edge of the clearing. Pine needles and cones carpeted the ground, perfuming the air with their pungent fragrance.

  “Now what?”

  “Now we look around for clues.” He opened the door quietly and stepped into the clearing.

  Flights of blue-gray birds winged about in the trees, squawking with alarm.

  “Pinyon jays. These trees are full of nuts.”

  “These trees?”

  “Not all the trees have nuts every year. Different trees in different years. The jays know. When I was a kid, I used to go with my mother and grandmother and harvest the nuts. We always looked for the pinyon jays to tell us where the nuts were.”

  Linda looked up at the birds flying about in noisy profusion. “Frank, what’s that?” She pointed up into the interior of a pinyon pine.

  “Where?”

  “There, about halfway up the trunk.”

  “Good eyes, white woman. You win the brass ring.” In fact, that’s what it appeared to be, a brass ring hanging from a nylon cord. He pushed past the lower branches and climbed up to where he could reach it, cutting the line with his pocketknife about an inch from the knot.

  Linda examined the rope in Frank’s hand. “Not much of a clue.”

  “Better than nothing. See the knot. It’s a bowline. People use the knots they know how to tie. He knows how to tie a bowline. Who knows, maybe he was a Boy Scout.”

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  “Do you know how to tie a bowline?”

  She shook her head.

  “Most people don’t, unless they were in the Scouts. Your dad and his pals probably do. Knowing how to tie knots was part of being a kid back in the forties and fifties. There are all kinds of knots: sheepshank, bowline, trucker’s knot, half hitch, square knot.”

  “How come you know so much about knots?”

  He grinned.

  “Right, you were a Boy Scout.”

  She picked up the rope, dangling the ring to examine it. It was about three-quarters of an inch in diameter, made of two thin plates crimped together. Remnants of tan material poked out from one side where the two halves of the ring had been pressure clamped onto the canvas. “I think it’s an eyelet from a tarp. See the brown material along the edges?”

  Frank frowned in thought. “You know what I think?”

  Linda shook her head. “Not unless you tell me.”

  “I think someone tied a tarp up in the trees, probably a camouflage tarp, and then the wind came along and ripped part of it loose.”

  “Okay. It could be anyone, though.”

  Frank nodded. “Yeah, it could, but why would someone bounce up that wash just to camp up here? We passed lots of better spots, level and easy to approach.” He rubbed the bridge of his nose, then nodded his head as if coming to some conclusion. “I think this is where the shooter ducked the air cover. It’s invisible from the road. The wash leading up to the rocks isn’t exactly a highway, and rocks don’t leave much in the way of tracks. Once he had his vehicle out of sight, he could’ve just waited it out under the trees, under his camo tarp.”

  He nodded again. “There’s a hell of a lot of Hunter Mountain. The aerial search was abandoned after a couple days. The California Highway Patrol covered 395, 190, and the Panamint Valley Road. Hell, everyone covered the roads, but what were they looking for? Not a clue. Somebody suspicious.” He grinned. “Maybe a Mexican wearing a wet rag on his head to cool off. Bingo! Homeland Security announces the capture of José bin Laden.”

  “You’re feeling pretty cocky, Mr. Flynn. So if everyone was looking for someone they wouldn’t recognize, he could’ve driven over to Lone Pine and checked into a motel.”

  “Yeah, but that would be running an unnecessary risk. Whoever this guy is, he’s careful.”

  “Or whoever this woman is. Don’t forget: equal opportunity killers.”

  Frank gave her a look. “She’s a real stork, then, a lot taller than you or me.”

 
She grinned.

  “Right, a lot of people are taller than me. I’ll rephrase that. The shooter had to have been well over six feet, though.” He paused for a moment, looking back toward the road. “I think he waited for the planes to go away, then drove the dirt roads until he hit the north end of the Owens Valley and doubled back through the Saline Valley, or maybe he drove out through Ubehebe Crater. Hell, there are lots of dirt tracks.”

  He lifted the cord and the brass eyelet from Linda’s hand and slipped it carefully into his shirt pocket. “I’ll put this into a sandwich bag. Maybe it has prints.”

  Wind gusted through the pinyons, drowning the noise of the jays. The trees sighed to one another in timeless complaint. There was a sadness about it, all shadows and wind. Sometimes, especially in the late afternoons, Frank felt as if the trees and rocks were watching, expectant. He watched the high clouds move above the trees and felt a momentary chill as they cast their shadow on the land.

  “What’re you thinking?”

  There was a muffled pop. Then the pinyon jays screamed in alarm as one of their number fluttered to the ground.

  Frank leaned forward, listening, his gaze fixed toward the cluster of rocks between the small clearing and the road, the direction from which the sound of the shot had come. Linda knelt by the pinyon jay. One wing waved aimlessly and stilled as the bird’s eyes glazed over. “It’s dead, Frank.” The softness of her voice was drowned by the screeching of the jays.

  Two men in their early twenties trotted into the clearing from around the rocks. “Come on. I got one.” Frank waited for them to discover they were not alone. When they saw the man and the woman standing near the dead bird, they stopped, hesitant and off guard.

  Frank pointed at the still jay, the gray-blue body nearly indistinguishable from the bed of pine needles where it lay. “Nice shot.”

  The men relaxed in the temporary comfort of dispelled guilt. “Yeah, got him from back on the road.” The speaker was the shorter of the two, carrying the rifle.

  “That looks like the new Ruger K77, right?” Frank said.

  The man nodded. “Yeah, the new .17 caliber Hornady Magnum.” The man’s voice lingered proudly on “Magnum.”

  Gotta have the gun with that magic word “Magnum,” Frank thought. “A real bird killer.” He smiled crookedly at the man.

  “It’s the varmint model,” the man said, slightly offended.

  “Oh yeah, that’s right.” He glanced down at the dead bird, then up into the pines. “Damn varmint jays, out here disturbing the peace. Eating up all the pine nuts.”

  The two shooters were suddenly conscious of the cacophony of sound surrounding them.

  Frank eyed the shooter’s T-shirt. It depicted a cowboy on his knees by a prairie grave. The cowboy’s horse stood in the background, head turned toward the grieving cowhand in equine sympathy. The shirt bore the caption IT’S HARD TO STUMBLE WHEN YOU’RE ON YOUR KNEES.

  “I see you’re a practicing Christian, or is that shirt just for show?” Frank asked.

  Both men stood mute, not sure where this was leading. The wearer of the shirt stepped forward. “Yeah, I’m a Christian.” He glared at Frank. “So what’s the point?”

  Frank barely smiled. “Here’s the point. Let’s share some scripture. ‘Bless the beasts and the children, for in this world they have no voice. They have no choice.’ You think killing birds is Christian behavior?”

  “The Bible says that?”

  “Aphasians 12:14.”

  “It’s just a bird.”

  “What kind of bird?” Frank asked.

  The shooter looked down at the dead bird. “Blue jay.”

  “It was a pinyon jay. Now it’s just dead.” He let his gaze travel from the dead jay back to the two men.

  “Screw this. Let’s go,” the taller man said.

  “Hold up there for a minute.” Frank reached in his pocket and flipped out his badge.

  “Aw shit, don’t tell me it’s illegal to shoot a blue jay.”

  “Pinyon jay.” Frank corrected. “It’s illegal to shoot from a road. It’s illegal to discharge a firearm where it might endanger someone. You shot from the road, in our direction.”

  “How’re we supposed to know you were here? We didn’t see you.”

  “That’s the point. You’re supposed to check it out.”

  The two men were silent.

  “You can go. Wait! Before you go, why don’t you see if you can pray the bird back to life?” Frank pointed at the lifeless jay. “Should be easy. Small bird. Small miracle.”

  “What the hell’s the matter with you, man? All we did was shoot a bird.”

  “You can’t bring it back to life, can you? In the future, stick with targets, tin cans, and legal game during hunting season. You read me?”

  “Yeah, yeah, follow the rules. Obey the law. Do as we’re told. I get it.”

  “A bit of advice. You’re not the only ones around here who like to kill things. I’d go home.”

  “Is that a threat?” the man with the rifle said.

  “Nope. Just letting you know there are some people who’d take exception to killing things for fun. Some of them even carry guns.”

  “We’ll go wherever the hell we want.”

  “Suit yourself.” Frank wanted to do something to scare the shit out of them, make them sorry they were mindless assholes. “Oh, don’t forget your dead bird.” It was the best he could come up with.

  “Screw you,” the shooter said. They disappeared around the rocks, heading back for the road.

  “Couple of real winners there,” Linda said.

  “Yeah, Numb and Dumb. Born-again entitlement.”

  “You told them that ‘Bless the Beasts and the Children’ was from scripture. I thought it was from the Carpenters.”

  “One of my favorite songs.”

  10

  •

  “Greg, you and Agent Novak will check out the Darwin Falls Wilderness Area. Lot of burros in there.” Meecham pointed to the quadrangle map. “Okay with you, Pete?” Novak nodded. “Greg, use your pickup. No, not you, Frank.” Meecham smiled. “We don’t want anything to happen to Frank’s truck, right, men?” The comment brought chuckles from the other rangers. “The point is, we’re going to have to violate the regulations about the use of personal vehicles. If the shooter comes looking for the Brotherhood of American Sportsmen and finds nothing but the Bureau of Land Management, we’ll have wasted a lot of time and money.” They were crowded around a table in a small conference room at BLM headquarters in Ridgecrest, Dave Meecham doing the briefing.

  “Jesse, you and Agent Ellis run up the east side of Cerro Gordo and check on the White Mountain Talc Road. Jesse, do you mind using your Bronco?”

  “Sure. I mean I don’t mind.”

  “That work for you guys?” Meecham shifted his attention to Ellis and Novak. “You’ll be running the greater risks posing as hunters.” Meecham made it a point to defer to the federal agents. It was their plan to horn in on the possible matchup between the Brotherhood of American Sportsmen and the Sandman, but it was BLM territory.

  It was going to be an interesting operation. Special Agent Drew Ellis of the FBI and Jesus Sierra, ranger from the BLM, had met for the first time in Meecham’s office, and that only to shake hands before the briefing. Sierra, the youngest BLM ranger working out of Ridgecrest, maybe the youngest ranger in the BLM, wore a thick, drooping Pancho Villa mustache to give him a few years. Without it, his round face and mischievous dark eyes made it difficult for him to look properly coplike. The name Jesus hadn’t helped the cause much either, nor the long eyelashes, nor the fact that young women inevitably giggled and flirted in his presence. Mostly he shrugged it off. He had a comedic streak and was able to turn the cracks and jokes aside and redirect them at his colleagues. He even poked fun at the reserved Frank Flynn. This was much to the delight of Greg Wilson, who regarded Frank as too formidable to tease without some ganging up.

  Special Agent An
drew Ellis wasn’t all that sure about Sierra. This was Ellis’s first time working with BLM law enforcement, and the BLM had some definite quirks. For one thing, it had the damnedest non-chain of command he’d ever encountered, and it seemed like they were all mavericks, off doing things on their own initiative. Meecham seemed reliable. He was a professional. He’d been eight years with the Border Patrol before coming to the BLM. Most of the rangers had come from somewhere else, city or county PD, Border Patrol, state police, but some of them didn’t sound like law enforcement or look like law enforcement. Ellis found Sierra’s appearance and demeanor disconcerting, but better Sierra than Flynn.

  In Ellis’s eyes, Flynn’s attitude was definitely less than professional. Ellis frowned, remembering Flynn’s crack about the Dairy Queen. Cocky smart-mouth with his stories about Black Bart and old-time detectives, but what really got to him was feeling like a fool, finding out that General Zaroff or Zarov or whoever was a fictional character. It didn’t seem to bother Pete Novak, but not much seemed to get under Novak’s skin. Ellis turned his head to where Flynn was standing bent over the maps next to Meecham. So far, nothing from Flynn but respectful silence. Frank lifted his head, and their eyes met. Ellis openly scrutinized the slim figure. Flynn was smart and quietly confident in a way that Ellis envied. He gave Ellis a small nod and returned to the map in front of Meecham.

  “Flynn’s going to check out Grapevine Canyon and the Hunter Mountain area. That’ll put him on the Saline Valley Road.” Meecham straightened up. “The Inyo sheriffs will take the paved roads: 395, 190 between 395 and the Panamint Valley Road, and Panamint Valley south to the Ballarat turnoff. The Park Service will keep an eye on Wildrose Canyon.” He looked around. “Any questions?”

  Wilson half-raised his hand. “We don’t exactly know what we’re looking for besides a tall guy with a .270, do we? I mean, is there anything that might help us narrow it down a bit?”

  “Frank, anything to add?” Meecham said.

  “Not much, except for some guesses. I think he might have hidden his vehicle out on Hunter Mountain. I found a place a couple miles beyond the turnoff where someone had parked a vehicle. A panel van would be my first choice, but only because you can’t see what’s in it, and it’s a place to hole up in, or shoot from.” Frank thought of Zeke Tucker’s van with a stab of conscience. “There’s something else, though. The timing for this isn’t ideal.”