- Hard Fall Read online

  by James Buchanan

  "Good." I rolled my shoulders to ease out the stiffness as I walked toward the truck. "Let me get the evidence bags out from where I chucked 'em. Then y'all can go."

  Nadia fell into step beside me. "Keep me in the loop, if you would?" She grinned. "Well the death itself ain't my jurisdiction, but I'm interested. If you need any help with anything let me know. A little interagency cooperation never hurt anyone."

  "Thanks." I leaned over the back gate and pulled the baggies of miscellaneous possible evidence from the pocket of the sleeve. "You ever need anything, just call and ask for Deputy Joe. More than happy to help. Law enforcement's thin as hairs on a bald man's head 'round here, so I don't mind helping out with someone else's party, neither."

  What I wanted to do with the rest of my day was head for a hot shower and clean pair of socks. Instead, I knew I needed to sort my rack. If I waited, then I might put it off too long, and before you know it I'd be out on a call with a sack full of tangled rope and rusted carabiners ... or my climbing clothes sitting on a pile of laundry at the house instead of being in my pack. I was still kicking myself for that one.

  Kabe'd already settled himself on the porch. Late afternoon sun filtered almost golden through the thin mountain air. As I helped everyone get Gunter's gear transferred to Ramon's SUV, I kept my eye on Kabe. Not 'cause of anything suspicious. Naw, I just wanted to watch him. Meticulous, focused, Kabe sorted ropes and hardware into two piles ... his and mine. Things had gotten a little mixed together with the way we'd ascended.

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  Long fingers nimbly worked over the ropes, drawing out tangles and easing kinks as he went, and I was thankful for that. Less work for me to re-rack everything. The sun warmed his skin to a deep, caramel hue and the tip of a deep red tongue rested just at the edge of his full bottom lip. Every so often, Kabe'd absently run his hand over his scalp, mussing the short dark waves of hair. It made me want to drag my own fingers through the mess.

  "Joe," Fred's voice caught me and I realized I'd just been standing at the side of the truck staring at Kabe like an open-mouthed fool. A rock steady and friendly grip caught my arm.

  "Be careful."

  I snorted to break the tension, "I'm always careful. It's my middle name, Joseph Careful Peterson."

  "I thought it was Price." He flicked the back of my Stetson with his other hand. "You know what I mean though. You watch your step."

  For a minute we locked eyes. He worried about me, I could see it. If he worried, I should too, and I couldn't bring myself to. I guess my dick had the reins. "Okay, Fred," I blew out my breath and pushed my hat back. "I'll do that." It was the only bit of reassurance I could offer. Weren't quite a lie ... just came darn close.

  After I watched them all drive off, I turned back to the porch. Kabe sat there, hands dangling between his knees and staring hard. When he saw me looking, that I got you look slid across his face. "So, not heading out with the rest of the gang?"

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  There's being hunted and there's being played; up for one but not the other. Figured I needed to put that distinction to rest. "My gear needs sorting, too," I growled out as I ambled over. "And, I need some time to think over things."

  He used his foot to push my pack over. "Like what?"

  "Like why things aren't sitting right about Gunter's story for me."

  "Maybe 'cause you're a suspicious son-of-a-bitch? I mean, you're a straight arrow cop," a lot of emphasis got thrown on the straight part of that sentence. "Everyone's got something to hide. All those hidden, dark spots inside that they don't talk about. Desires no one wants to admit. Skeletons hiding in every closet." If that whole thing didn't come out of his mouth loaded with twenty types of meaning, I'd eat my hat.

  If I rose to that bait, I'd be dead. Best to play it off and pretend I didn't know what he meant by it all. "Always suspicious, that's why I'm good at what I do." I dropped down on the stair below his, my butt on the tread, my boots scuffing the earth.

  My own ropes were a tangled mess even after Kabe's sort.

  Want to know what evil is, it's the way climbing ropes twist in and around themselves while stuffed in a pack. Not much to do but start pulling, gently, easing the twists out as I went.

  There's something soothing in a methodical task, especially one that's somewhat mindless. Only a little bit of my mind needed to focus on the feel of the cord in my hands. The rest of my thoughts could spin out, walk the paths that I'd only caught glimpses of. Twist the puzzle pieces around, see what 66

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  fit and what didn't and where all the holes in the big picture were.

  My fingers soothed nearly twenty feet of rope before it hit.

  "Wait," my hands dropped into my lap and I turned to look up at Kabe. "Didn't her husband say she'd gone off to take pictures of the sunrise?"

  "Yeah," he shrugged. "I think so. She took pictures of everything."

  "Do you remember seeing a camera?"

  Kabe stilled. "No, I don't." He let his fingers walk the rope a little longer. Then he added, "But, I might have missed it."

  "Pretty straight shot down to where we found her. Might have bounced and gone further." Though I was sure I'd have spotted it had the camera been anywhere near. "And I'm curious." I was beyond curious actually. "'Cause her husband, he was acting like he was all distraught and such..."

  "But he was only acting like he was fucked up by it."

  "You know, the English language is perfectly fine without the use of profanity." I glared at Kabe. I ain't prissy, but I don't need to hear certain words to know someone's serious.

  I stewed a might, then let it go. Some things are worth staying angry for ... most ain't. "So, he just don't sit right with either of us." I kicked the dust around for a while, trying not to seem like I was pushing. "Whatcha got on tap for tomorrow?"

  Ropes wound about Kabe's feet. "Not much, dude." Slowly, he pulled the length through his fingers, eyeballing the strands for obvious wear, feeling the sheath for internal bunching before letting it coil naturally on the step where he 67

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  sat. "Sorta feel like a fifth wheel around here on this ranch stuff. It ain't chasing the big one off the point." He snorted like that meant something ... I didn't have a clue, but I figured it must be important to him. "Most of the stuff that I know how to do, it just doesn't mean much here."

  My mind shifted into double-time thinking of excuses I could feed him so he'd stay. "Hey, everyone starts somewhere." That time on the cliff made me want to get to know him more ... in a lot of ways. Ninety percent of them my church wouldn't approve of. And I can't say that he didn't tear me six ways over a barrel. Bad news, hot body and a personality that switched from hot to cold quicker than the weather in the mountains.

  "I could start by learning to ride a horse." He laughed. For the first time I think I heard real laughter out of him. Not thinly laced sarcasm or spite, but real amusement echoed in warm, deep tones that I could grow to like ... a lot.

  If he could hunt me, I could stalk him back, although I tend to be more on the subtle end of the scale. Years of hiding drilled it into my soul. "You know, search and rescue actually is pretty big here. Tourons do stupid stuff, get stranded all the time." Touron ... cross a tourist with a moron and wind up with a search and rescue operation. "T and George'll teach you how to deal with the stock if you want to stick around long enough. And if T don't mind, we do canyon practice here once a month. It's all volunteer, but we can use more guys who can get down a wall." Give him a reason to stick around, something exciting to get his blood up and hook him on the taste of the mountains. "Brian Head is great skiing 68

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  come winter. Snowbound mountain rescue can be more extreme than the sport
that got the tourons in a jam. Virgin River in Zion has white water, pull people out of there a few times a year." Oh man, I sounded like a Utah Tourism commercial; visit scenic backcountry, get in a jam and let me pull you out.

  "Not like I have much better." He wrapped the tail end of his rope around the middle of the rest before giving me a wry smile. "I promised my grams I'd be here through my probation. She's worried. It was stupid what I did."

  Pushing my Stetson back off my forehead, I played it straight with him. "Look, I ain't gonna yank you." No use pretending I didn't do the background check. Lies like that just got all tangled up 'round your tongue and tripped you up when you least expected it. "I went over your record, know what you went up for. Stupid was climbing the dam." I kicked the dust at my feet then added, "Criminal was possession."

  "That was stupid, too."

  This I didn't want to probe into; might just ruin the whole fantasy I was building in the back of my head. But it was up and I needed to deal with it. "Accident huh?" I threw out the excuses I'd heard over and over while working the prison.

  "Didn't know what you had? Somebody else's backpack?"

  Managed, however, to keep my voice from sliding into snide.

  He stared at the rope in his hand for a bit, then looked up at me and snapped, "Why do you fucking care?" He shoved the bundle into his pack like he was shoving his fist down a throat.

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  I deserved it. I'd pissed on him. "'Cause I'm a deputy sheriff hereabouts and I can make my assumptions off your record or you can tell me." And 'cause I wanted that lean brown body in ways I shouldn't have. I wanted him to give me an excuse I could buy. "Then I'll decide if you're lying or not."

  "No, it was mine." Anger suddenly gone, he rolled his eyes and shook his head. I realized I'd caught more emotions rolling off him in the last few hours than I'd seen displayed in the weeks previous. "Well, it wasn't mine, but the crap was in my pack and I knew it. Stupid was why I did it." With a shrug he went back to inspecting the next section of rope.

  I don't know how many feet went through those fingers before I prompted, "Waiting."

  "Okay." Kabe dropped the last bit onto the coiled pile.

  Leaning forward, he rested his forearms on his thighs, letting his hands dangle between his legs. There was a bucketful of dare in his eyes when he finally looked up at me. "Not my drugs. I don't do drugs, clouds you, you don't think straight.

  Not that I'm a fucking angel or anything. I don't sell either, but you know, what's good for me," he shrugged, "well, I'm not going to be high and mighty about it and force my view on everyone else."

  Then he ran his hand through his hair and leaned back to rest himself against the stair, cocked back on his elbows and legs stretched out. "I thought the shit was at base camp. My partner picked it up on our way out. I told Tony that it was stupid, but the guy wasn't going to be there long. Tony said it needed picking up for a rave a promoter we know was 70

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  sponsoring. So we get popped on the dam. Tony takes the pills out of the other pack, shoves them in mine. 'Cause Tony's got a record and there's a big sentence hanging over another arrest. Tony begged me to take the fall, 'cause I'm clean ... record wise." His face went sour, like the words tasted bad. "Couple years, baby I'll come see you every day."

  He cooed in someone else's falsetto. "And I loved Tony's ass, so I did it."

  "So all for love was stupid?" I didn't want to believe he felt that way. Guys burned that badly often couldn't be fixed.

  They went through life carrying a backpack full of suspicion and fear of getting taken again.

  Kabe flicked a pebble off the tread and watched it bounce across the dirt. "Yeah, 'cause the last time I saw Tony was just before I got arraigned. The only people who ever came on visitor's day were my grams and my dad." He sighed, long and heavy. "I'd call Tony on the few times I'd earned it. The first two times the charges were refused and then finally Tony's number just didn't work anymore. So, I got set up for someone I loved, who saw me as a fun fuck."

  With the name and lack of pronouns, no way I could tell whether it was Tony with a y or an i. I figured by what I knew of Kabe, Tony had balls, but I could be dead wrong. "You want to kill them? Hurt them? This ain't the officer in me, just me. I'd want to hunt someone like that down after." Shoot

  'em, run over 'em a few times, drag 'em behind the truck.

  Just about anything that might make a guy wish he was dead.

  "First year and a half, shit yeah. The last six months I served, I worked it out for me. Nobody can goddamn take 71

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  advantage of you if you don't let them. So I did it. I own it. I got to live with it and just deal. Getting back at Tony wouldn't change what happened. Okay, 'nuff of my bullshit sob story."

  He pushed my knee with his foot. One of those buddy kinda moves that could have meant anything. "You were asking about cameras and what I'm doing tomorrow ... sounds like some of my past dates."

  "No, I want to go find a camera. Something ain't sitting right about this whole thing. If she was taking pictures, it'll be around and that might prove that he's not lying through his teeth." I finished sorting my rope and shoved it into my pack.

  "No camera, Gunter's story falls apart."

  "Well, we can go out in the morning." Kabe picked up another pebble from the stair and tossed it at my patrol car.

  It pinged on the hood. "That thing got four-wheel drive?"

  "Yep, but not the kind for serious off-road. My sedan ain't gonna make it back there." I looked around. I knew T had more than one pickup: his own newish one and then one that'd seen more service than a mule on a canyon tour. "Use T's old truck?"

  Kabe shook his head. "George has it in Cedar City, went down for groceries."

  "Okay, well, you got an ATV."

  "We're not doing the ATV." He coughed. "Not going to happen, dude."

  "Hey, the nearest off-road vehicle for the department is in Panguitch. If I go back, find Diamond and wait for her to bring it 'round after her shift ends tomorrow, I won't be back here at the ranch house 'till noon. We'll lose almost all the 72

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  daylight. I figure if we go back first light it gives me a good lot of time to search."

  "You don't need me out there." Where this sudden shyness came from I didn't have any idea. "I'd get in your way."

  Okay, maybe he just didn't like not being on the offensive.

  Too bad. "Going into the back country, where I might need to climb, too stupid to do it alone. So, yeah I do need you. And two can ride the ATV you know."

  Kabe ran his hands up and down his thighs. "No they can't." There'd been suspects I'd busted who acted less nervous.

  I leaned in. "I don't bite."

  "That's not it." He swallowed and a little bit of red crept up his neck, making his skin darker still. I could almost smell the worry in him. It added a spicy edge to the scent of a guy who'd been climbing most of the day. "Belt's busted. I tore back from the site yesterday. Wasn't paying the greatest attention, I guess, and thrashed it about a mile down the road. Ran the rest of the way back to the house."

  You don't know how hard it was not to drool over that image. Sweat running down Kabe's chest, back, face, pounding down the trail with all those muscles working overtime. I got to get out more often, 'cause these fantasies would drive me nuts. 'Course now I figured where that fear came from. "T ain't gonna hold that against you, no how." I grinned and slapped his thigh. "Okay, well, I guess it's my day off, I could take my truck. Probably best anyhow. I'll pick up the rest of my rack and my gear. You still got yours 73

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  packed up? We'll be up all day, best to be prepared if we get stuck out there."

  "Yeah, camping stuff's still strapped to the ATV,
" a weight seemed to come off his shoulders with my reassurance. "But I can take Buddy out and haul it back."

  "You know," I snorted, "there's some kinda justice that you're going to use a mule to tow a broken four-wheeler back to the ranch." Then I stood and stretched. "I'll meet you back here at first light. Can you be up that early?"

  "Yeah." Kabe stood too. "Most of my climbs start before dawn." There was a little wistful note in his voice.

  Darn, he probably wanted me to stay, give some excuse.

  And I could, Lord knew I could, but something told me not to make it easy on him. A guy like him probably hadn't been turned down much. And like he'd said that morning, I didn't want to be seen as a pushover. Heck, if he was here for the whole length of his parole, it gave me two years to make it hard on him. Not that I'd wait that long. I smiled to myself and headed toward my car. As I pulled open the door, I shot the grin back at him. "I just never know with city folk, y'all are a strange breed."

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  Chapter Five

  "So, how long we gonna keep at this?"

  I looked over to see Kabe plunking his butt on a log and swigging water from his bottle. Sweat darkened his shirt in a V down the front. His hair hung in damp tangles against his neck and forehead. We'd been up, down, around and over this part of the mountain all day. So far, we'd found a whole lotta nothing.

  Huffing out a breath, I dropped down on a bare patch of ground opposite him. "Until we find something." Easy and slow, I stretched out my legs and hooked my elbows behind my back, not quite lying down. Sorta like an easy chair, but not as comfortable.

  "We may never find anything," he grumbled and shook his head. Little beads of sweat spun off. "You know that."

  "It's got to be here." If it was out here I had to find it. One of those threads I couldn't let loose until I'd followed it to the end.

  He rolled his head back and stared at the sky. Then he grumbled, "Unless Gunter was completely full of shit."

  I let the obscenity slide without comment. "You said it yourself. That little gal was all about her pictures. She wouldn't have gone anywhere without that camera."