Blood Trail - C. J. Box [104]
THE TREES closed in around them as they ascended. The sky was gray, the air almost still. Two hours until dark. Joe pulled his truck off a two-track and turned off the motor.
“Recognize this place?” Joe asked Pope.
“Of course,” Pope said, annoyed. “It’s where Frank Urman was found.”
“And where Randy Pope will be found,” Joe said.
Pope’s red-rimmed eyes filled with tears.
30
THERE IS a very specific way to skin an animal so that a taxidermist can create a flawless shoulder mount. It’s called caping. It works best if the animal to be caped is hung up by the back legs.
Caping requires a sharp skinning knife with a short, fat blade like the one in my sheath. A slit is made in the skin behind the shoulder at the midway point of the rib cage. Another is made around the legs just above the knees. Or the arms, in this case. A third precise cut is made to join the slits on the back of the leg (or arm). The skin is then peeled like a banana toward the jaw until the neck is exposed. Then the very delicate work begins: cutting the skin away from the ears, skull, nose, and mouth. The weight of the hide—skin is surprisingly heavy—helps because it pulls the skin-peel downward. The skin is sliced away from the flesh with extremely light knife strokes. If the procedure is done correctly, the skin will drop away into a wet pile in the grass, showing an inverted, inside-out face.
This is what will happen to Randy Pope. My only dilemma is whether I’ll cape him when he’s dead or still alive.
THE TERRAIN, of course, is familiar. As I stride—careful to step on exposed rocks and to keep slightly to the side of established and muddy game trails—I weigh the advantage of knowing this mountain and the exact location of my prey against the possibility that I’m being led into a trap. Given the odds and what I know to be true—that the FBI informant has yet to give bad information and that an opportunity like this is too great to disregard—I proceed.
The sky concerns me. Even a skiff of snow makes tracking easy. I vow that if it starts to snow I’ll turn back the moment it begins, despite the opportunity offered me. I study the clouds and conclude it will snow, but later in the evening. After I’m done and back.
My backpack is empty except for several thick-ply plastic garbage bags. The pack will be heavier when I return due to fifteen pounds of skin.
I CAN’T shake the feeling I’m being followed. I’ve neither heard nor seen anything to confirm my impression. Several times I stop and stand still, compelling my senses to reach out beyond their capacities to tell me something. The only thing I can point at that supplements my suspicion is the utter quiet—except for a slight breeze in the treetops—that remains in my wake. I’ve learned that after I’ve passed though an area, after a respectful period, the birds and squirrels begin talking to one another again. But I hear no resumption of sounds. It’s as if I’ve shut out all life by being in its presence.
There are conceivable justifications for the quiet. Low pressure can do it.
Either I’m imagining things or whoever is behind me is as good as I am. I proceed.
FINALLY, I’M CLIMBING the last rise and the trees start to thin. This is where Frank Urman was taken, just below the ridge I now approach. I drop to all fours, cradling my rifle on my forearms, and crawl to the top and look over the other side.
A quarter of a mile away, in that stand of trees, is Randy Pope. He’s just standing there, his back against a tree.
JOE FELT the presence of the shooter without actually seeing anyone. The hair on the back of his neck rose, and a shiver rolled up the length of his body from his boots to the top of his head.
He was behind the upturned root pan of an enormous fallen pine tree. He could see Pope’s shoulder through an opening in a gnarl of thick roots. He could tell by the way Pope shook that the man was sobbing.
They’d handcuffed Randy Pope behind his back to the same tree Frank Urman had been hung from and made a show of leaving the area. But instead