- Hard Fall Read online

  "What if it's with Gunter's stuff?"

  I pulled out my own water bottle and thought for a moment before knocking the drink back. How much should I 75

  Hard Fall

  by James Buchanan

  tell Kabe? Pretty much everything that had been said about the case had been said in front of him. "It wasn't."

  With a snort, Kabe's head came up. He glared at me. The hinges of Hell couldn't be hotter. "How do you know?"

  "Called Fred." I tucked the bottle between my knees and fished for a bit of jerky. As I ground it between my teeth, I finished up the thought, "Asked him if he found it when he was helping Gunter pack up. Not there."

  "So it's out here?" Arm swinging wide, Kabe included the world in his question. "Somewhere?"

  "Yep."

  Another sigh sounded before Kabe pushed off the log and stumbled toward me. He landed heavy in the dirt at my side.

  "And you're going to keep looking for it until you find it?"

  If'n I thought it was more than him playing at exhaustion, I'd have been worried. Instead I just confirmed, "Yep." We'd hit the area just before noon. Nothing never got started when I wanted, and we'd been searching ever since. My bones were work-weary, too.

  "Look." He reached up and snagged the last of the jerky from my fingers. That took a lot of pluck. I'd arrested men for less. "It's getting toward dark." Shading his eyes with one hand, Kabe popped the bit between his teeth and studied the sky. "We've been out here six, seven hours." A bump on my thigh with the back of his fist said he wanted my attention.

  Lord knew he didn't need to try and get it. "Why don't we pack it in?"

  I'd done darn near everything 'cept lasso and hogtie Kabe into the back of my pickup to get him up here. Then I'd spent 76

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  the rest of the day doing my best to avoid him, sending him off in different directions to search. "We got a little more light left." I hedged. The little ways I tortured myself ... one of these days I'd drive myself nuts.

  "Right," he huffed, shifting until he could prop his back against my shoulder, "and we should use it to drive out."

  "You got any place better to be?" I certainly couldn't think of a finer place to be at that moment. Touching him like that, sharing a huge blue sky. The wind got the trees whispering and the ground squirrels romanced each other. Near perfect afternoon with just us together. And I loved the mountains, loved 'em like my own life. Nothing in the world could compare to a huge sky miles from any hint of civilization.

  Reminded me of sex ... the openness of it, the forgetting yourself in the moment of it, losing your soul to something bigger and touching creation for just a second. Closet romantic, me.

  A lot of silence passed between us. Not the hard, uncomfortable sort, but the kind that a couple of guys out doing not much of anything could share. Finally he answered,

  "No."

  "Then let's keep looking." I sat up, pulling my knees up and slinging my arms over them. It meant Kabe had to move, which meant he wasn't touching me no more, but my arms were gonna go to sleep if I'd kept trying to maintain that position. "We brought our gear, we can stay the night and drive back home tomorrow. But I want to find that camera or show that I did everything in my power to prove there wasn't one." I shook my head as I wrapped one hand around the 77

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  back of his neck. One of those little more than friendly, but not quite brotherly, gestures that could wind up anywhere along the buddy spectrum. "Gunter's not a US citizen. Which means he's on a visa that is going to expire sooner or later.

  And, at this point, all we got is a pocket full of suspicions.

  That ain't enough to hold him here. We need something."

  Kabe didn't pull away. In fact he leaned into my touch just a hair. A subtle play of touches that could mean anything to anyone. "You really think if we find her camera, it's gonna help? I mean we've been looking forever along every path we could find." His knee fell sideways a skosh, brushing mine.

  Playing at touching without really touching.

  "It's gotta be here, somewhere." I let my hand linger on his skin. Kneading the knots in his neck with my fingertips, I added, "If it's not, that's important, too. But, you know, I always got to think there's going to be a hot shot attorney coming on my heels treating me like a dumb hick." That had happened before and weren't pleasant to go through.

  "'Deputy, why do you think there's no camera? Did you look everywhere? Cover every inch of ground?' And I want to be able to answer, 'as much as humanly possible.'"

  "I think we've walked every bit of this ridge. We've been a few miles either way. Split up, together, circles, grids ... my neck is killing me from looking down at my feet." Kabe rolled his head and then his shoulders like he enjoyed the not-quite-massage. If he liked that, I could come up with something he'd like better. Instead I just kept sitting and touching and rubbing his neck. Neither of us acknowledged what I was doing more than that. Kabe was a big enough boy to ask for 78

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  what he wanted, if'n that's what he wanted. "I don't know about you when you went off that direction, but I know I was checking everything. It's not on the ground up here, not that I can find. And I couldn't find it looking over the cliff. I don't know what has happened to the camera, but it's not around."

  "Okay look," I left off the contact and stood. Didn't much want to, but sooner or later we'd have to move. "Likely Anya'd stay on a trail when she left camp. I don't know the gal, but picture taking requires some concentration."

  Smacking the dust off my butt, I looked around and thought on it. "I'm guessing, she wouldn't want to be beating a new path. And we know, I should say we've been told, she was headed toward the rim. There's only a handful of animal trails leading this way from the camp. 'Course one's kinda mucked up since all of us used it to get out here." I pointed from the place where we pulled Anya outta the canyon back toward the woods. This was the spot we'd returned to time and again ...

  the center of our world for the duration of the search. "We'll walk them one last time. Let's not be so focused though.

  Maybe she didn't go out by herself. Maybe she didn't get to the face on her own power. Let's just hike 'em and take in the big picture."

  Kabe snorted, "You just want to be out here until dark.

  Don't you?" He clambered to his feet, those deep green eyes teasing me.

  "Pardon?"

  Stepping in real close he leered, "You're trying to keep us out here until it's too late to drive back. Tell me I'm crazy."

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  "Crazy no. Wrong-headed yep. I am, right now, wanting to solve this puzzle. Even if you weren't out here with me, I'd be doing the same thing." That was true.

  Course Kabe also had me dead to rights on the other. But there ain't nothing in the manual that says I can't mix two reasons. Lot of things in my religion said I shouldn't. But I'd pretty much decided I would walk the wrong side of my faith when I'd cooked up the idea to drag Kabe along. A lonely, cold bed ... heck, it's a lonely, cold bed, and I was near to my fill of that. This solution seemed so much more satisfying then sneaking off to Vegas for a weekend. Hollow cruising Friday and Saturday night and everyone assuming I'd gone off to the Temple there to do work for the dead—posthumous baptisms, saving the deceased by proxy and all. Luckily, no one ever reported back to the Bishop whether I'd actually been or not.

  I glared back him and growled, "'Cept I'd be out here without all the arguing about going home." Didn't like having him point out my lying to myself.

  "Okay," he shrugged, like he pretended it didn't matter to him. "If that's what you want to believe."

  "It's the honest truth." I even kept a straight face as I said it.

  And we walked. We walked a lot. Back over places we'd been two and three times in some cases. The problem with t
racking a nature freak is that they really tried to follow the take nothing but pictures, leave nothing but footprints saying.

  No trail of candy wrappers and cast-off bottles to make it easy to tell where Anya'd been. I had to guess as to where she'd gone, and I hated guessing.

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  Anya could have cut cross-country. Most people don't do that, preferring the path of least resistance. So logically, she'd likely followed a cleared path. There were three game traces that lead toward the rim. One of them was so overgrown and narrow that no matter how hard anyone tried, they'd have been like a bulldozer plowing through and the trail was too pristine. Figured she hadn't gone down that one.

  The others we went over with a fine toothcomb. Again.

  I hated to give up. Finally had to. Kabe kept pointing out that we were running out of daylight. Trying to pick our way back to the lower clearing where I'd parked the truck got more hazardous as the golden-red wash of sun faded and blue shadows took its place. A good, deep twilight settled down over the forest before we made it back to the pickup.

  "Well," Kabe griped from behind me as we closed the last yards to my truck. "I guess you got your wish."

  "What wish?" Whoa, Nelly, I sounded grumpy, too. I needed to sit down and swallow some grub.

  "A night under the stars." It came out far less romantically than the words might otherwise. "Truck bed camping, woo-hoo." All the enthusiasm of a guy who's sore, tired and frustrated carried over in his tone.

  "Quit complaining. I'll feed you, you'll feel better." I even dredged up a smile for that. Doubted he could see it in the twilight, but maybe. "Why don't you drop your pack and go get some wood for a fire. A good campfire always helps." He didn't even answer. Kabe's pack hit the ground with a thump then I heard his boots crashing back into the duff. I looked 81

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  back to see him stalking off into the trees. I shrugged out of my own pack.

  Okay, well, I could get camp settled. Wasn't too hard to brush clear a place for a fire, gather a few stones to ring it and I called it done. Then I popped the pickup's shell and dropped the gate so I could crawl inside the bed. I didn't have one of those full sized campers, just a low shell to keep rain off my gear. Still it was big enough that you could sit kinda hunched over in the back. I crawled up in and started to rummage for what we needed to make life livable again.

  A little two-burner propane stove with the disposable propane bottles got hauled out of the stash of junk.

  Momentary panic hit me with the first bottle I found. An old one, an empty one that I'd forgotten to refill a while back.

  Yeah, they say disposable, but a little coupler and you can refill them from your bigger tank. The next one was fine so we'd have hot food. Cooking on a campfire ... best left to the Boy Scouts earning a badge.

  I always kept a supply of canned and dried food, enough for three days, in my truck and my patrol car: search and rescue and all, never knew when I might get called out and whether it might take more than a day. Every few months I'd rotate the stock into my pantry. Tonight I worked camp cooking magic, a can of tinned beef, tomatoes, corn, kidney beans, chili beans—none of it drained—and a packet of chili seasonings. Dump it all in and cook it up. Great stuff when you've been out climbing all day.

  Kabe wandered back into the makeshift camp carting an armful of wood. While we didn't need it for cooking, a camp 82

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  without a fire seemed somehow pretty sorry. Dropping the wood near the cleared fire pit, he sniffed the air. "Wow, what is that smell?"

  "Chili." I looked up and caught Kabe staring at me like I'd grown two heads or something. "You're not a vegetarian or anything weird, right?" You meet some real new-agey health nuts on the walls. Probably should have asked before I started cooking, but heck, my take on it has always been if someone else cooks it, I'll eat it and say it tastes fine by me.

  Gift horses, mouths and all that hooey.

  "Nope," he laughed. The sound flowed pure and natural around me. "Run it through, cut off a hunk of beef and I'm good. Body temperature is just about right." Dropping down to kneel by the soon-to-be-campfire, Kabe began to wad up the papers I'd set out for the purpose. "So you know how to really cook outdoors?" Carefully he stacked the paper, kindling and wood. Yep, we'd have a small, but proper fire.

  "Not just a handful of dried fruit and a packet of ramen."

  I grinned at the recitation of a backpacker's diet: easy to make, fairly light to carry and boring as all get out. Certainly, I was no gourmet, but food ought to do more than just keep you moving. Weren't all that hard to go a little extra. "Be real nice I'll make you powdered milk and instant oatmeal pancakes tomorrow." I teased as I stood and wandered over.

  "Can't stand survivalist cooking. So I learned how to do it right on limited means."

  Not looking at me, Kabe asked, "What do I get if I'm better than nice?" The tone was so flat it had to be teasing. The kind 83

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  that pretended the words didn't mean what everyone darn well knew they did.

  "Depends on what you like." We danced around everything like a couple shy gals; teasing, not saying nothing direct.

  Somehow that felt okay by me. Never really had the chance to play those kinda games with words and not quite touches.

  Kabe courted me as much as I did him and this was all part of the sport to make it taste real sweet once we finally got the candy.

  "Cream." A quick flick of his eyes dared me to laugh and break the spell. "Lots of it."

  Oh, I could play that. "You might have to work for cream."

  "Working for it always makes it taste so much better." He waggled his eyebrows before snorting it back. Yep, Kabe broke first ... score one for the deputy. I was downright pleased with myself for that.

  Kabe finished setting the fire and got it going. While he managed that, I fixed the truck bed into a fairly serviceable tent. Three older self-inflating pads set cross-wise through the bed meant I wouldn't lose any feeling in my shoulders and hips come morning. Heck, I wasn't old, but I sure as heck wasn't no twenty-year-old that could sleep on the hard ground and wake up raring to go. I set the small portable radios into the dashboard charger—didn't use enough power to run the truck's battery down—fished out the shake-n-bake flashlight and tossed it onto the bed. By the time I finished that, the fire crackled, chili was ready and night settled down around us.

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  The first few minutes after I'd served up dinner were spent shoveling food into our mouths. You never knew how hungry you were on a hike until someone handed you grub. When the pace settled down to something that didn't resemble a couple of starved wolves on a deer, Kabe shifted and stared at the fire. The gold-red light, the way it danced, did all sorts of interesting things as it worked over his skin. Mostly it made him more good looking than I imagined humanly possible.

  "Hey, Joe," a whole 'nother Kabe came out in those two words. A little unsure, kinda respectful and really pretty serious. Each time I saw something new, it caused me to wonder just how deep that boy went. Somehow, I figured pretty darn deep, like a cool, dark well, full of secrets and sweet water. "Ah, can I ask you something?"

  "You can ask me anything," I mumbled around a mouthful of chili, "I reserve the right not to answer."

  He fell quiet for a bit, and I wondered if I'd shied him off whatever he meant to ask. Then he set his bowl down and looked straight at me. "Are you Mormon?"

  Now there was a mine field if'n I ever saw one.

  Unfortunately it was one I had to cross. "Yeah," I huffed, not liking to talk about it with someone ... well someone I kinda figured to do a whole lotta non-religious type of worshiping to if'n I had my way. "I'm a member of the LDS church." Talking about it always reminded me the lie I
lived. I did not want to be reminded right then. "Why?"

  I didn't get no answer. When I'd about thought he'd left the subject, I got hit with another question, "Are you a good Mormon?"

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  "Depends on your definition of good." I shrugged and dropped my bowl at my feet. Conversation killed my appetite.

  Slowly he ate another couple mouthfuls, like he was thinking of how to describe it. "Coffee?"

  "I ain't heartless ... I carry some for those friends of mine who might need it, want some?"

  "I wasn't asking if you had it. Do you drink it?"

  Somehow that always ended up as the benchmark of the religion. Don't know why, but I guess it came across as the weirdest normal thing the LDS did. I leaned forward, resting my elbows on my knees. "Nope. No coffee, no tea, no booze."

  I picked up a stick and tossed it to the flames. "I keep pretty strict on nothing with caffeine."

  "But you, ah," he looked up and even in the dancing light of the fire I could tell there was some hard thinking going on behind those eyes, "oh, never mind."

  Yeah, I'd messed with his head the other day out on the wall. Guess he was trying to add two and two and coming up with five. "Look, Kabe, I don't take sacrament, haven't in a while." I tried to explain it as best I could. Knew I wouldn't be too successful, never managed to fully settle it all in my own mind. "Tell my Bishop it's 'cause some of the things I do as a deputy put that into a little conflict ... fights and all. Then, also my schedule, I got to work Sundays, so I ain't honoring that, plus it makes me miss a lot of things they say I should be doing, including my conferences with the Bishop." Since I'd never had to lay it out before, I don't know as I did even a passable job at explaining. "So I ain't a bad Mormon, but I ain't necessarily considered a good one neither." The best I 86

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  could do was try. "But I believe in it, I got my faith deep in me and I'm pretty darn sure God loves me, no matter what.

  Cain't manage more than that."

  "Oh. Okay." Man it sounded like I darn near killed him ...