Читаем Back of Beyond полностью

“It’s happened before,” Mitchell said. “In the deep backcountry like this, folks leave a dead body so they and the Park Service can come after it once they get out. Packing a body along just invites bears and mountain lions and such. It’s like trolling for predators. It’s not a good idea.”

Cody didn’t respond. He pulled his duffel out of the panniers and withdrew the file folder.

It didn’t take long. He said, “My guess is this is Tristan Glode, president and CEO of The Glode Company of St. Louis. He look sixty-one to you?”

Mitchell grimaced when he looked over. “Yup. Could be.”

“He fits the physical description here in the applications,” Cody said. “There’s only two other older men on the pack trip. One is named K. W. Wilson and there isn’t much background on him. The other is Walt Franck, His Richness, and I know that son of a bitch and this isn’t him. Which is kind of a shame.”

“Want some jerky?”

“No,” Cody said. “I want a cigarette.”

“Sorry.”

“I wonder what he did to deserve this,” Cody said. “Knifing a sixty-one-year-old man. His wife’s on the trip, it looks like. I wonder if she’s involved or if we’ll find her body up ahead. I can’t see her just going along after her husband’s been killed. And how many in the group saw it happen? And what kind of hell are they going through now?”

Mitchell shrugged.

“Do you have a GPS?” Cody asked. “Mine got burned up in the fire. I’d like to get the exact coordinates here so we can let the rangers know to come get the body.”

Mitchell said, “I know the exact location of Camp One. I’ll tell ’em.”

“There may be more forensic evidence around here,” Cody said, looking up toward where the tents were pitched on the grassy shelf. “A crime-scene crew could find something if they got here before too long. Maybe where the killing took place, or footprints, or pieces of parachute cord. Or blood. It’s not unusual to find the blood of the killer at the scene of a knifing. It’s amazing how often the assailant cuts himself with his own knife during a struggle. Lots of times they don’t even know it until later.”

“Yeah,” Mitchell said with a slow smile building, “I watch them shows on television. The CSI folks would get here and we’d know the whole story and catch the bad guy in forty-eight minutes flat.”

“It doesn’t work like that,” Cody said.

“And it sure as hell wouldn’t work here,” Mitchell said. “I promise you that. It’ll likely rain this afternoon and wash evidence away, or the wolves will come back and clean things up. Nothing works here like normal, like I told you earlier.”

Cody sat down heavily on a rock next to Mitchell.

He said, “I’ve never been on a crime scene before when it was just me. Usually we’ve got evidence techs and forensic guys on the way, not to mention all my own equipment. I can’t even communicate with anyone except you. I feel so goddamned helpless.”

“So maybe we better get on our horses and find the rest of ’em,” Mitchell said. “That’s the only way we’re going to know what’s happened here.”

“Yeah. So you said earlier we have to leave the body?”

Mitchell nodded. “We ain’t takin’ it with us, that’s for sure.”

“Then what do we do with it? Sink it back into the lake? Bury it?”

“Wolves’ll come back,” Mitchell said, shaking his head. “There won’t be nothin’ left. There’s only one thing we can do.”

Cody said, “Hang it up?”

“I know where the food pole is,” Mitchell said, struggling to his feet, his back popping. “A hundred yards up the mountain away from the camp. Unless Jed moved it. We can run the body up the pole until the rangers get here.”

“Man.”

“Unless you’ve got a better idea.”

“I wish I did.”

* * *

It wasn’t easy. Cody got kicked in the face with Glode’s boots as the body was pulled up into the air. Mitchell had dallied the rope around his saddle horn and walked his horse toward the north until the body was raised twenty feet into the air. Cody looked up. Glode’s arms were splayed straight out to the sides from the rope looped under his arms. His head was cocked to the side and his legs hung straight down. The body turned slowly as they tied the rope off after wrapping it around the sap-heavy trunk of a lodgepole pine.

“Birds’ll get at it,” Mitchell said, “but there isn’t much we can do about that. This is about as dignified as we can get for now.”

Mitchell tied the rope off. “Things have changed around here in more ways than one,” he said, as much to himself as to Cody. “If anything, they’ve gotten a hell of a lot wilder and more dangerous than they used to be. The grizzly bear population is way up, and there’s nothing going to keep it down. And the reintroduction of wolves has changed the whole ecosystem. I’ve heard old-timers compare this wolf deal to introducing street gangs back into inner cities where the gangs had long since been wiped out. I’m not sure I’d go that far,” Mitchell said, “but it sure has changed things. There are a hell of a lot more critters around that can eat us than there used to be.”

“Great,” Cody said.

* * *