Blood Trail - C. J. Box [109]
He was horrified by what he’d done.
JOE SAT on a downed log and watched Nate walk down the slope. He was numb. He didn’t feel like he was all there. His hands sat in his lap like dead crabs. They were bloody from turning Shenandoah over, hoping against hope she would somehow pull through, even though he was the instrument of her death. He wished she wasn’t gone because of his failed effort to save Randy Pope’s worthless life.
Her body looked so small in the grass, maybe because the life in her had been so outsized. Joe thought, Promise kept, Nancy.
But it didn’t make him feel any better.
AS NATE approached, Joe could see his friend take it all in—Pope’s slumped body still cuffed to the tree, every pint of his blood spilled down his shirtfront and pants and pooling darkly around his feet. Shenandoah’s broken body thrown to the side, the knife still in her hand.
Nate holstered the .454 as he got closer and dropped to his knees in front of her body. He took her lifeless hands in his, closed his eyes.
“I saw it happen,” Nate said. “There was nothing you could do.”
“Nate, I’m so sorry,” Joe said, his voice a croak.
“No words,” Nate said.
Joe couldn’t tell if Nate was asking him not to speak or if no words could express what he felt.
JOE STOOD up dully and changed the frequency on his radio to the mutual-aid channel, and as soon as he did he was awash in conversation from over the hill. He heard Sheriff McLanahan, Chris Urman, Deputy Reed, and others congratulating themselves over the shooting of Klamath Moore, the monster who’d killed the hunters. McLanahan was talking to dispatch, telling Wendy to contact the governor and tell him the state could be reopened for hunting.
“Sheriff,” Joe said, breaking in, “this is Joe Pickett. I’ve got the bodies of a couple more victims over the ridge.”
The chatter went silent.
“Come again?” McLanahan said.
NATE WALKED over to where Joe sat on the log and put his hand on his friend’s shoulder.
“I feel so bad,” Joe said. “I mean, a woman. And not just any woman. Shenandoah.” He looked up. “Did you know it was her?”
“Not until the end,” Nate said, raising his eyebrows. “Justice was done—all around.”
“Here.” Joe handed Nate his keys.
Nate looked at him for an explanation.
“Take them and get out of here before the sheriff sees you.”
“I can’t.”
Joe shrugged. “Go. You don’t have that much time.”
“What about you?”
“I said I’d do what was right. The governor assumed I meant I’d bring you back.”
“Joe, I—”
“Git,” Joe said.
31
“BUY YOU A DRINK?”
Vern Dunnegan laughed, pulled the large woman with fire-engine-red hair on the next stool closer to him, said, “You bet. We’ll both have one.” And to the bartender: “Set ’em up, buddy.”
“Another Beam on the rocks?” the bartender said.
“Double Beam for me and my lady,” Vern said, “thanks to my benefactor here.”
His benefactor was tall, rawboned, with piercing, ice-blue eyes and short-cropped blond hair. He had not taken off his bulky parka. Snow from the late November storm outside had melted into drops on the fur trim of his hood. The drops reflected the neon beer signs at the windows. Outside the glass, thick flakes blew by horizontally, looking like sparks from a fire.
“You just get out?” the man asked, leaning on the bar with his hands clasped in front of him.
“Yes,” Vern said. “About four hours ago, in fact. This is my first stop. I plan to drink until drunk, eat until sated, and maybe later”— he squeezed the overweight redhead hard around her waist, nearly toppling her from her stool—“some sweet romance.”
“Romance,” she scoffed, blowing a cloud of cigarette smoke toward the back bar. The smoke curled around the framed front page of the Casper Star-Tribune with the headline KILLER OF HUNTERS SHOT DEAD and a photo of smiling anti-hunting activist Klamath Moore.
“That’s in a lot of bars around the state,” the man said.
“As it should