Back of Beyond

He could never enter the campground-which the U.S. Forest Service contracted with the L amp;C Sheriff’s Department to patrol-without remembering the keggers he used to attend there when he was growing up in junior and senior high. That’s when it started, he knew. When he learned that when he drank he could feel like a superman. His muscles and attitude swelled and his reticence and common sense stepped aside. He recalled a fight with baseball bats, remembered the hollow sickening sound his twenty-eight-inch maple bat made when it connected with Trevor McCamber’s forehead. Remembered the creamy white belly and thighs of Jenny Thompson under the blue-green glow of his dashboard lights … before that belly swelled with his son and he married Jenny in a drunken and hasty ceremony at a ranch outside of town. His best men had been Jack McGuane and Brian Winters, fellow seniors and best friends at Helena High. Brian thought the wedding was hilarious. Jack tried to pretend it wasn’t. Jack’s parents spent the ceremony shaking their heads and looking toward the road to see if Cody’s father and uncle Jeter would show. They didn’t.

After graduation from high school, Cody and Jenny moved from place to place until finally he was back in Montana without her or his boy.

* * *

Cody Hoyt drove under the towering knotty pine archway and over an ancient wooden bridge barely nosing above the foam and fury of Trout Creek filled with runoff. Around a wooded corner was the cabin, and suddenly there were lights in the pure darkness: the headlights of a patrol cruiser trained on the charred remains of the structure, and a single round Cyclopean eye of a departmental Maglite swinging his way and blinding him.

This was the crime scene, all right.

Cody pulled up next to the patrol SUV. Inside the next vehicle, illuminated by the interior lighting, were two citizens. A man in his forties and a woman who looked to be in her early twenties huddled in the backseat. They looked cold and tired, he thought. The man needed a shave. The woman needed a hot shower. He nodded at them through two sets of windows and they nodded back.

The patrol officer, Ryan Dougherty, appeared at his driver’s window, and tapped on the glass with the flashlight. In the process of doing it, he blinded Cody again.

Cody powered down the window, and said, “Would you quit shining that fucking thing into my eyes?”

“Oh, sorry.” The patrol officer, newer to the department than Cody, was blond and baby-faced with a trimmed bristly mustache that said, Here comes a cop! and eyes that had not seen enough. In fact, Cody thought, Dougherty looked flushed, despite the weather.

“What happened to your front end?” Dougherty asked.

“Hit an elk,” Cody said.

“On the way up?”

“Yeah.”

“Bull or cow?”

Cody hesitated. “Cow.”

Cody knew what Dougherty would say next. “Got a cow permit?” he said, grinning.

“Ha ha,” Cody said, deadpan.

“I bet you’ll be hearing that one a lot.”

“I bet I will,” Cody said, nodding toward the patrol vehicle. “Those two the hikers who found the cabin?”

“Yeah. I met them at the York Bar and they showed me the way up here. Here, I got their names.…” Dougherty dug inside his raincoat for the notebook in his breast pocket. He was in uniform: brown shirt, tan pockets, and epaulets. The reason the dopers called them “L amp;C County Fascists.”

“I don’t need their names,” Cody said. “Unless you think they did it.”

“Oh, no. Not at all.”

“Did they tromp all over the crime scene?”

“Just a little,” Dougherty said. “It’s hard to tell what they touched.”

Cody said, “Why don’t you ask them?”

“I can do that.”

“Good. Put one of them in this vehicle and interview them separately. Walk them through their movements when they first saw the cabin. Find out which direction they came down, and what they did inside. Find out what they touched and if they took anything. It’s amazing how many times citizens take souvenirs from a crime scene. If something sounds wrong or their stories don’t match, come get me.”

“Yes, sir,” Dougherty said. The flush was gone from his cheeks. Cody could tell he was beating himself up for taking their story at face value.

“I’m gonna go take a look,” Cody said.

“It’s wetter than hell,” Dougherty said. “The ash from the fire makes it all … soupy.”

Cody glared at him. “Have you been in the crime scene?”

Dougherty looked away for a second, and when he turned his head back he said, “A little.”

Cody’s voice was ice. “How fucking little?”

“Enough to confirm there’s a body. A big fat one.”

Cody took a deep breath of wet air.

“You aren’t gonna write me up, are you?” Dougherty asked. “I was thinking, Jesus, what if the person is still alive?”

“Don’t lie.” He repeated a sheriff’s department bromide: “You lie, you die, Dougherty. You wanted to see a burned-up dead body. Everybody wants to see a dead body until they see one. Have you had your fill?”

“Christ, yes,” Dougherty said, shaking his head. “I’ll be seeing that thing in my dreams.”

“Step aside so I can get my rain gear,” Cody said.