Killer Summer

“Give what you’ve got to Evelyn,” Walt said.

“The guy making the call is retired Navy. Made a big point of that. Didn’t want to be taken as a quack. He gave us his location in lat/long.”

“In order for it to appear not to be moving,” Evelyn said, accepting the note from the deputy, “he would have had to have been directly behind it, looking in its exact line of flight. I can work with that.”

Walt referenced a map that was projected on one of the overhead screens as Evelyn drew a line north, northwest across Stanley.

“There’s nothing out here,” he said. “No airports. There aren’t even roads.”

“Given the jet’s rate of descent, it went down somewhere here,” Evelyn said. She drew a line perpendicular to the first line, like crossing a T. She glanced at the wall clock. “Twenty to twenty-five minutes ago.”

“Went down?” Walt said.

55

Kevin opened the door that led from the garage/storage into the lodge, listened for signs of life, and, hearing none, sneaked inside. Adrenaline-charged and terrified, he hoped to find a phone or a radio. Since the death of his father, he’d manipulated his mother, banked on friends’ pity, bargained for better grades from his teachers, and underperformed for his employers. Only his uncle wouldn’t cut him any slack. And now, of all the people, it was his uncle that he found himself emulating.

Coats hung on pegs to the left, boots were lined up neatly next to a rough-planked bench. The coats were all big, the boots all the same size: large. Kevin worked his way down the hallway, past the kitchen, and into a living room. It was furnished with couches, overstuffed chairs, and a dining table and chairs. In the oversized fireplace, the remnants of a summer night’s fire glowed.

The room was unintentionally shabby chic. The furniture didn’t match; there were wrought-iron lamps with cowhide lampshades, a deer-antler chandelier over the table. There were no bright colors or flowers. The tone was more hunting lodge than family getaway.

While the cowboy appeared to live alone, this notion was contradicted by a better view of the kitchen, with its eight-burner range and twin refrigerators.

He was the caretaker, was more like it.

Searching for a phone and not finding one, Kevin didn’t panic. Summer had told him about the radio and portable GPS in her father’s emergency bag on the jet. If Kevin struck out here, with the right distraction he might be able to return there.

Just when he was about to give up, he spotted a radio atop of a walnut cabinet. Its face was dark, and a handheld microphone on a spiraled black cord was hanging from it that reminded him of the CB radio in his uncle’s Cherokee.

Kevin heard deep voices rumbling through the wall, and he looked out the window to the top of the stairs, where the cowboy was talking to the copilot from the jet. The two men turned toward the lodge.

He now rushed to the radio, switched it on, grabbed the microphone, and hit the TALK button.

“Mayday! Mayday!” he whispered. “I’m at some lodge… on the Middle Fork, I think. Our plane went down… a jet. There are guys after me… the guys who took the jet.”

He heard the cowboy’s boots and the pilot’s shoes clomping up the steps of the lodge.

Replacing the microphone, ducking down, and making for the nearest door, he looked back to see he’d left the radio on. At that moment, the front doorknob was turning. Only then did he spot the open gun case to the far right of the door. It held at least five rifles.

He hurried through the door and found himself in the study, with its two-person couch, beat-up recliner, and flat-screen television mounted on the wall. There was a cowhide under the harvest-table desk, and on the walls a pair of snowshoes, a brass clock, and some old black-and-white photographs. The fireplace was constructed of river rock, with a wide hearth for sitting close to the flames, and nearby was a closet with sliding doors. The room smelled sweetly of pine sap and pipe smoke, and it felt like it would be a cozy place to spend a long snowed-in day.

Kevin had his ear to the study’s door while searching for a way out-the door and a casement window immediately behind him.

“… basically, a ten-acre island in the middle of God’s country,” a man’s heavily accented voice was saying on the other side of the door. It was the cowboy. “The river is down there by the strip, with gorges at either end. Amazed you made it in. We extended that runway a year ago, but the boss’s pilot took three weeks of simulation before daring to try it.”

“What do you mean ‘an island’?” asked the other man, the copilot.

“This cabin’s on Shady Mountain. It’s four thousand feet. Between it and the river… It’s the isolation of this place, the privacy, that the boss finds so pleasing. Original cabin was built eighty years ago from logs cleared from the land. Major redo when the boss got it ten years ago. You can fly in, float in, but you don’t get hikers knocking on your door like at some of these ranches… Can I get you something?”

“I’m okay, thanks… So, you take care of it by yourself?”

“That I do.”

“Must get a little lonely.”

“Not that I’ve noticed-”

“Come back. Didn’t copy,” a nasally thin voice broke in.

“Ah! The radio,” said the pilot.

“Huh?” the cowboy said.

“Didn’t copy your call,” the radio voice clarified.

“I didn’t call.” The cowboy raised his voice for the radio.

“Is this John?” said the radio.

“It is. Ernie?”

“Get yourself off the cha

“Keep your britches on,” John said.

There were a couple pops, then Ernie’s voice was no more.

“Not sure who we should contact first,” said John. “I’ve got a satellite phone. I’m thinking you might want to call your boss before I go getting the Custer County sheriff all in a froth.”

“You’re right about that,” said the pilot.

“I’ve got to call it in, but I sure as shit can wait ten minutes if that’ll keep you your job.”

“It might.”

“I’ll chase down that sat phone for you.”

“Sounds good.”

The cowboy’s boots sounded as he crossed the room, then stopped abruptly.

“You must have made a shout-out to ATC once you caught fire,” the cowboy said.

The pilot stuttered with his answer. “Ah… of course we did.”

“Well, hell, there’s no putting it off, then. They’ll be organizing searches. We had something similar last year-a Beechcraft Bonanza gone missing. Radio’s probably the way to go. Call off the dogs, you know… not fair to them.”

“I know what you’re saying, but I’d sure appreciate contacting my boss first. That phone would be a big help.”

“Timing won’t make any difference,” the cowboy said, his voice suddenly cautious and reserved. “How many souls did you say were on board?”

“I didn’t say,” said the other man. “But it was three of us: me, my pilot, and one crew.”

A loud knock caused Kevin to jump.

“Yeah?” the cowboy hollered. “Come in.”

The door opened, then banged shut.

“Whoa!” said the cowboy. “You took quite a hit.”

“That’ll teach you to tighten that seat belt,” the copilot said, “won’t it, Bobby?”

Bobby…

Kevin knew the newcomer. He’d hammered him with the wrong end of the fire extinguisher.

Kevin hoped the cowboy’s change in tone meant he’d reasoned through the radio being found switched on. The discovery had to be weighing on him, had to have prompted the question about the number of passengers.

One thing became clear to Kevin: the cowboy wasn’t part of the team. He and the copilot were strangers to each other, each testing the other. Distrustful of each other, it was begi