Back of Beyond

“What plane?” Cody asked, but as he said it he recalled something Larry had said. Something about a disabled private airplane flying south toward Yellowstone that was spotted by citizens in Bozeman but never reported missing by anyone. The incident had caused the assembling of the interagency Homeland Security search and rescue team and that was when Larry said he met Rick Doerring of the Park Service.

“That goddamned plane that went down last winter,” Gannon said through clenched teeth. Black blood seeped through his fingers, which were laced around his shattered kneecap.

“What’s in the plane?”

“Jesus. Money. Jesus. Drug money.”

“Why go with Jed? Why didn’t you just come up here on your own and go get it? Why involve all these people?”

Gannon was starting to shake. His teeth chattered. “It wasn’t my fucking idea. Jesus, I’m going to bleed out and die.”

“Let’s hope,” Cody said. “So whose idea was it? You said ‘we.’”

“My partner. All my partner’s idea. All of it.”

Cody took a deep breath, fighting back the urge to shoot again. Mitchell hovered, shaking his head.

Cody said, “So your idea was to what? Come up here with Jed’s clients and break off and find this damned plane? Use him so he could lead you here?”

Gannon nodded his head. “Yeah, that. We wanted to come on our own but with the snowpack and the flooding, this was the first time we could get to where we think the plane crashed. When we found out Jed was leading his clients where we wanted to go-and would be the first to get there anyway-we signed on. Believe me, there wasn’t supposed to be all this trouble.”

Cody gestured with the rifle, urging Gannon to keep talking.

“None of this other stuff-those three stupid guys back there-was supposed to happen. But that idiot Jed decided to take a different trail, and one of ’em-Glode-got mad about it. That and his wife going down with D’Amato. So he said he was going back on his own. We couldn’t risk him getting back to the vehicles and telling the Park Service where we were going. What if they sent rangers after us? They might locate the plane before we did.”

Cody thought the likelihood of the Park Service sending rangers to tell Jed McCarthy to get back on the established route was crazy and unlikely, but he didn’t want Gannon to stop talking, so he urged him on.

“So I went with Glode. I tried to talk him into going back with the others, but he was stubborn and had a bug up his ass and he wouldn’t turn around. And you know what happened. I had to stop him.”

Cody took a step toward Gannon, still aiming down the sights at his other knee. “Why take out D’Amato and Russell, then?”

Gannon closed his eyes. His chin shook. “They wouldn’t have found Glode or me and they might have gone all the way to the parking lot looking for us. There was a good chance they’d call the Park Service and report a couple of missing men. It was a worse situation than what happened with Glode, because at least that guy deserved it.”

“So you shot them both point-blank when they found you,” Cody said. “And left them to bleed out or wait for animals to find them. Thinking they’d be mauled beyond recognition if their bodies were ever found and maybe not even point to you.”

Gannon rocked back on his haunches holding his knee. He said, “This whole damned thing is a clusterfuck. Everything’s gone wrong.”

Cody said, “So why did Jed take the other trail?”

“I don’t know, I don’t know … it’s all his fault this happened.”

“He didn’t kill three people,” Cody said, “or put my son in danger.”

Gannon writhed in pain. “Worse,” he said. “Worse.” As if that somehow lessened his own guilt.

“So your partner is still with the others on the pack trip?” Cody said.

Gannon nodded, his eyes closed, his mouth contorted.

“Which one is he? Jed?”

Gannon either couldn’t speak or refused to say.

“I said-”

“Damn you!” Gannon bellowed as his eyes shot open. He glared at Cody with unbridled hate. “You’re a cop. I know you’re playing rough and you’ll think of some story to cover you later. I know you won’t kill me. But I damned sure know she will.”

Cody felt the hairs on his neck stand up. “What did you just say?”

37

Jed McCarthy was angry and anxious and almost missed the game trail he was seeking to go up the mountain. That Dakota was miffed at him was one thing. But to blatantly disregard his instruction to bring him another horse, to vanish like that leaving only his saddle on a stump, was another. And why did she take the lame horse with her? Where in the hell did she go when she should have been getting dinner ready for his clients?

So he’d gotten another damned horse from the herd and put his saddle on it and ridden out of there.

“Women,” he said, as if it were a curse word.

He wondered if she’d be there when he got back to camp. He wondered whether-hoped-Tristan Glode, Tony D’Amato, and Drey Russell had returned as well. He didn’t care about Wilson, never had.